Corrine Posted April 21, 2012 Share Posted April 21, 2012 Ed Bott provides step-by-step instructions on how to boot Windows 8 from a virtual hard disk. Note: This will only work on a PC running Windows 7 Ultimate or Enterprise (preferably 64-bit). The Boot from VHD feature does not work on other versions of Windows 7. Also, if you’re using BitLocker encryption, as Ed said, "stop right now. This will just make you cry." How to use a VHD to dual-boot Windows 8 on a Windows 7 PC | ZDNet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest LilBambi Posted April 21, 2012 Share Posted April 21, 2012 Tragic... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peachy Posted April 23, 2012 Share Posted April 23, 2012 Actually it should work with Windows 7 Professional, too. I love Windows VHD Native Boot. That is, each of your Windows OSes are virtual. I have a setup where I can triple boot WinPE, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008. Basically, I create a small partition to store the BCD file which can also boot WinPE from the hard disk. The Windows 7 and Windows Server are installed directly to .vhd files from the Windows setup media. The trick is to launch diskpart when you get to the Windows setup GUI and manually create and mount the virtual drives. Windows setup will see the drives as physical volumes and you can point your installer to the drive. Additionally, this setup is multi-booting with openSUSE, Ubuntu, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and BackTrack. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest LilBambi Posted April 23, 2012 Share Posted April 23, 2012 Very nice Peachy! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peachy Posted April 23, 2012 Share Posted April 23, 2012 Even better, this is all done on a GPT disk and a UEFI firmware computer. The neat thing too is that Linux can be installed in this setup even if the distro is not UEFI-aware; you just have to use one of the UEFI-installed Linux distros as the bootmanger. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest LilBambi Posted April 23, 2012 Share Posted April 23, 2012 Yes, that is even better! Very cool indeed! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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