Windows 7 VHD boot option – no more VDI for testing?

Posted on February 21st, 2009 in Deployment, Server 2008, Vista, Windows 7 by alt-92

The beta version of Windows 7 (the public build 7000, and build 7022) offers support in BCDedit to boot from a VHD file on hard disk.
As explained in this Edge video (http://edge.technet.com/Media/Boot-from-VHD-in-Win7/) the install behaves just like normal, with a few exceptions such as BItlocker support and Hibernate (since these are disk-dependent).

It looks like a ‘nice to have’ feature for the ubertweaker and enthusiast at first, but think about this:

What if you need to support a DTA environment for desktops? Now, you don’t have to mess around with Virtualization software – just provision and deploy the VHD file with the appropriate configuration (such as a segmented VLAN for Test or Dev) and let your application developers use the same hardware.
No double PCs, no double network outlets, no extra poweroutlets or powerconsumption (think green here).

Sure, it needs some tweaking (preventing disk access between images) but.. tempting nonetheless…

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