- Ease of deployment: IT organizations can deploy standardized, 'pre-built' configurations on a single VHD. As an example, software engineering organizations which need a specific set of tools for a particular project could simply 'pull' the appropriately-configured VHD from a network location.
- Backup-and-Restore: Changes to the contents of a VHD (such as infection by a virus, or accidental deletion of critical files) are easily undone.
- Multi-User Isolation: Many current operating systems support having multiple users, but offer varying degrees of protection between them (e.g., one user of the OS could become infected by a virus which infects other users, or make changes to the OS which affect other users). By giving each user their own version of the operating system—say, by creating for each of them a differencing VHD based on a base installation of the OS—changes to any particular child image would have no effect on any of the other child images. However, a virus can be programmed to search for VHDs and infect it: it is more a matter of securing file permissions and using the appropriate accounts (restricted user always, administrator or super user only when installing software or configuring the operating system)
And the limitations? Hibernation is not supported... :p
- Boot to Win7 from a DVD.
- Press Shift+F10 to start the command prompt.
- Type: diskpart and hit enter.
- Use the "create vdisk file=D:\WinV.vhd maximum=xxxxx" to create a virtual hard disk. Choose a drive and a filename. xxxxx is in MB.
- Type "select vdisk file=D:\WinV.vhd".
- Type "attach vdisk". You will get a confirmation that the VHD is attached.
- Type "exit" to exit diskpart and close command prompt.
- Click on "Install Now" and install as you would normally a "Custom Install" and choose the VHD we just created.
The installation takes care of adding another boot option to the bcd.
Try it!
