Windows 7 - Such a thing as "easy" virtual machine with vhd?

I noticed there's a little wizard available now from SysInternals to create a vhd from a HD on the currently running system. Is there a really easy way to create a virtual machine from this or is it still 2 days of fussing around?

I really don't want to make a project out of it, but if it was something I could try in an hour it might be interesting(meaning an hour after I have a vhd to work with.)

The only thing that should really be required is creating a new VM in whichever hypervisor tool you are using, and then attaching the created VHD to it.

It certainly shouldnt take 2 days.

Is is true I can only run a 32 bit OS on it? See I have 2 PCs. One is running Windows 7 32 bit. For that Sandboxie pretty much takes care of safe surfing. That PC also has XP 32 bit I could clone since it has drivers for that machine. This PC is Vista64 and is not multi-boot. The one that needs the protection, naturally is the harder one to get something on. Sandboxie won't work. I've downloaded Returnil but I'm not sure that's all that stable yet. Just came out a few days ago with 64 bit support. Is there a chart what I can't and can do with say VirtualBox and VirtualPC?

(Meanwhile I'll keep googling, but I thought I'd start the ball rolling in case people with virtual experience will chime in.)

VirtualPC can not run 64 bit guests. I dont know about VirtualBox but i dont think it can.

VMwares ESX, and Server can and Microsofts Hyper-V and Hyper-V R2 can run 64 bit guests.

VirtualBox CAN run 64-bit guests. I'm actually working on a 64-bit Server 2008 R2 running under VirtualBox 3.0.8 at this very moment.

Thanks for the clarification.

Hi all,

Vmware workstation can also run 64 bit guests whilst the free vmware player can also run 64 bit guests (but can't create virtual machines -- a get around here is to use QEMU to define the virtual machine and create its disks then use vmplayer to install the actual OS on the virtual disk(s) ).

You can mount vhd's in most virtual machines. So just create the vhd / download it (vmware have "appliances" which are just embedded virtual apps on a vhd) and then boot your vm.

A corollary here is that a 32 bit OS can also run a 64 bit guest so long as the virtualisation in the cpu is enabled - by Bios or default. You can run a Windows 7 x-64 GUEST on an XP (32 bit host) or vista / Windows 7 X-86 hosts if you want to play around with a 64 bit version of Windows 7 before committing yourself.

Cheers
jimbo

Check Paragon Virtualization Manager, maybe it's something for you.
You can also mount your backup system image as a second hard drive on an existing virtual machine. See the tutorial section.

Kari