Devirtualizing with VHD Boot

[Induhasan]

I put my Office 2007 and SharePoint 2010 demo environment on system, and then I am having some queries about the devirtualizing with VHD boot. If I have the SharePoint 2007 Launch learned one is that such a physical environment with a client computer that is separate from the Hyper-V engine with the most high-performance servers in the works. Also, you can still show good client features such as the Tablet PC pen functions. For the 2007 I had to launch a second partition with a second Windows Vista installation. But that has several problems: First, a reasonable demo reset is difficult because you can reset while the server on a snapshot, the client does not. Second, you lose a lot of space on the plate by the second partition. And third is the addition of another client (eg for simultaneous processing of documents in Word 2010) is quite expensive. Please help me to sort out my problem.

[napoleon]

The solution is VHD boot in Windows 7, this feature allows a computer to boot directly from a VHD - with full hardware access. You have given in Hyper-V normally a Windows 7 install with all you need this (Office 2010 Technical Preview, Communicator R2, Silverlight, Firefox for compatibility demos) created. If a dynamic VHD to boot in Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2, it usually expands to its full size, thus takes on a maximum size of 127GB 127GB this one, even if only used 10GB. To understand the reason you have to imagine the following situation:

• The physical disk in the computer is 100GB in size, with 30 GB free.
• Then you simply put a dynamic VHD with a maximum size of 127GB on, which is filled with 15GB.
• The host drive is now so still about 15GB free space
• Now the catch in the VHD installed at operating system to write data and the panel will be expanded to 30GB. Result: The host drive is full. The operating system in the VHD can not write to the disk, indicating that although plenty of free space.

When virtualization is not nice, but the virtualization environment captures the problem and pauses the virtual machine.

[Zeverto]

When virtualization is not nice, but the virtualization environment captures the problem and pauses the virtual machine.

However, this would happen in a VHD boot, where the operating system running on physical hardware, the situation leads to disaster: crash and possible data loss is the result. Therefore, dynamic VHD when booting to the full size to be expanded. Those who want to avoid it because he wants an existing VHD boot physically with too high a maximum size that can set a registry key:

HKLM \ System \ CurrentControlSet \ Services \ Fsdepends \ Parameters \ REG_DWORD VirtualDiskExpandOnMount 4

This must be done before the operating system is started on the VHD for the first time on physical hardware. But be careful: you must be careful then meticulously that the host disk is not full.

[Wannabe]

After the installation (as mentioned by the "Zeverto"), is now ready to be prepared to run on other computers, as always with sysprep. This tool removes all computer specific data and is typically used by hardware manufacturers and corporate administrators to operating system images to prepare for distribution. It is found in c: \ windows \ system32 \ sysprep and run with these settings:
These settings ensure that after a complete reboot of the system hardware executed and the initial data (computer name, language, etc.) will be checked. It is important to "shut down" as an option to choose, so that this process does not begin immediately after exiting. At the end of this process you have a VHD, from where you create both virtualized and physical clients can. It is now important that this VHD will not be changed. Everything should be based on use Differencing VHD.

[Justvicks]

The VHD is now copied to the client machine, anywhere where there is enough space. Now you have to create a differencing VHD it. That goes with diskpart:

• vdisk create file = "c: \ Win7Client \ Win7Client1.vhd" parent = "c: \ win7Client \ Office2010Beta1.vhd"

This is the path to file = one who must be registered as a boot file, the path to the parent = VHD that was copied from the virtualization environment. For safety, you should see now whether the VHD is read correctly on the client. For this, open Disk Management (in Computer Management) and select the new differencing VHD via the "Action" - Add Virtual Hard Drive. If everything is OK you can then access the contents of the virtual hard drive by drive letter. Thereafter, the virtual hard disk disconnected (virtual hard disks are displayed with a blue symbol).

[Saura]

The entries in the boot manager of Windows 7 messages. The tool is to bcdedit (from an administrative command line). First, a new boot entry named "VHDBoot" by copying the current entry created:

bcdedit / copy {current} / d "VHDBoot"

The entry has been successful in {93098945-34cb-94ae-11de-b3293e16183f} copied.

The GUID obtained here is needed for other commands. Now the VHD must be both defined as a device osdevice:

bcdedit / set {93098945-34cb-94ae-11de-b3293e16183f vhd} device = [locate] \ Win7Client \ Win7Client1.vhd

bcdedit / set {93098945-34cb-94ae-11de-b3293e16183f osdevice vhd} = [locate] \ Win7Client \ Win7Client1.vhd

From the correct result can be convinced with bcdedit / v. Now the computer will just restart and use the new boot entry. The computer starts the Setup from the VHD, the hardware detection is performed and data such as computer name and Administrator account can be requested. After the computer is set up it will take it into the domain on your demo environment and set up things like the Outlook and Communicator account.

[Barsha]

Now comes the real charm of the solution: a simple resettable demo environment of mixed physical and virtual server client :

1. After everything is the way you want it you drive down the client computer.
2. Then you do at the server (I am running on Hyper-V) and a snapshot of the names so that its matched.
3. The client is then in the main operating system (ie, not from the VHD) is started.
4. The Differencing VHD (named above Win7Client1.vhd) is renamed, eg in the name of the snapshot the server.
5. Creates a new differencing VHD, the same name as specified in the boot entry and as the Parent VHD just renamed.
6. From this VHD (which only about 1 MB in size) is not made a copy via Explorer

If one now wants to later reset to a defined state of demo you need to do nothing more than restore the snapshot on the server and the client a copy of the VHD on the current state of copy and boot.