Windows 7: Boot from a VHD using Windows 7

Is it possible set a path inside the boot manager to a VHD located on another computer?

Welcome to SF! Flex

I seriously doubt anyone will be answering that question so I'll make this brief. Any VHD first has to be attached in the Disk Management tool on the local machine it will be booted from before the BCD entry for it is made.

For a vhd located on a totally separate machine from a host you would some other networking configuration in order to start up a virtual machine on the second machine itself by remote access.

One other question regarding booting 7 from a vhd regards the change of editions from the Ultimate 32/64bit beta at the time this guide was first written until now where one blog points out a problem when trying something like this with the Professional not Ultimate edition.

The blog at the link shows this limited to the Ultimate and Enterprise editions only unless making a few changes? Windows 7 – Booting from a VHD – Gotcha

Thanks for going out of your way to answer that. I've been looking into other methods. Experimenting with MDOP 2009 on XP and waiting for MDOP 2009 R2 to be released to start experimenting on 7. Appreciate the info. Thanks again.

I am running 32-bit XP as a virtual machine through Fusion 3. As a student I purchased 64-bit Windows 7 upgrade download and hard disk copy. I am unable to open the disk in XP because it is 64-bit. If I create a new 64-bit virtual machine then the disk boots but then tells me that I must install from a valid existing copy of windows (which makes sense since I only purchase the upgrade, not a full copy?). I didn't get far with the download because of the error you mentioned "We are unable to create or save new files in the folder in which this application was downloaded. Please check the folder properties to make sure that you have security permission on the folder to write files and that the folder is not read-only."

Can you help me?

I followed the tutorial .....and was lost, because I named my vhd something other than disk1

that was my mistake...I was in a hurry and didnt read

but how I got this sytem to boot so quick is I opened the windows install dvd's .wim file with 7zip and extracted it to the drive, rebooted ..........voila , setup takes over (rather quickly) and with one reboot.....windows 7 running on a file in a file

oops did I mention I'm on a linux computer running virtualbox windows 7,windows7

Has MS given other versions of Windows 7 the ability to boot from VHD besides Ultimate and Server? I have professional.

What is native VHD boot?

Native VHD boot enables a physical computer to be booted directly from a virtual hard disk (VHD) with no requirement for virtualization software (such as Microsoft® Virtual PC or Hyper-V™). Native VHD boot is made possible with the addition of a mini-port driver that is responsible for all input/output (IO) operations to and from the disk. Earlier versions of Windows (such as Windows Vista®, Windows XP, and Windows 2000) do not support native VHD boot, and therefore, you cannot use them to implement the functionality described in this document.

Source: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg318048(v=ws.10).aspx

So no VISTA I assume(?) In tutorial you say VISTA is possible, but is it?

Hello Ron,

Yes, you could can boot from a Vista VHD since Windows 7 Ultimate or Enterprise supports booting from a VHD. You just cannot boot from a VHD if your installed OS is anything other than Windows 7 Ultimate or Enterprise.

Since you have Windows 7 Home Premium, you will not be able to boot from a VHD though.

I already knew it wasn't working in Windows 7 HP. So website I referred to is wrong?

No, it's not wrong. It doesn't matter what OS the VHD file is. What matters is what OS you have installed to be able to boot from the VHD. That's all it's saying.