Hi, I'm trying to make a windows 8 VHD to boot but I have problems. I followed this tutorial: windows8geek. com/2011/04/install-windows-8-in-a-virtual-machine-bootable-vhd/ ImageX extracted the files OK but when I make an entry with easyBCD it doesn't work. If I reboot the menu doesn't appear and the system boots to windows 7.
What edition of Windows 7 are you using? From what i gather, you can only boot a VHD using windows 7 ultimate or enterprise
I had followed the instructions exactly, tried to install 7989 to VHD via the ImageX, it came up with some errors(I don't remember exactly the error message). And I did not see any advantage using VHD instead of hard drive partition (was still using the same hard drive space), so I just installed 7989 to my hard drive partition, and forget about the whole VHD thing... For your info: I have win7 sp1 ultimate and 7989 dual boot
Although VHD has limitations such as No Bit locker on the drive, and no hibernation, it doesn't has impact on the structure of the physical disk meaning Its just a single one file and its beats virtualization solutions such as VMware and Virtual Box because u get the actually performance of the hardware. It also makes it easier/faster to swap from one OS to another, you don't have to go through the whole windows set up process
You can also boot from the windows dvd, open cmd (shift + F3 if I think), mount the vhd and then proceed with the usual install wizard. You'll be able to choose the vhd to install to when you succesfully mounted it. It's automatically added to the bootmenu also. 1 thing though: make sure you create a fixed size vhd, cause a dynamically expanding one causes win8 to crash with a nice bsod (at least that's what 7850 did, unsure about newer builds)
You could... but I do not see why... Windows 7 is released. There will be many more versions of Windows 8.
Because I will always install Windows 8 leaks on my main hard drive, but it would be interesting to try out vhds and the new vhdx images.