How to boot from VHD file (Windows 10 Preview)

Although it is now easy to test things in a virtual machine it is still something that require, or work better, on a physical installation. Among other Hyper-V or devices with touch screen.

So now when "Windows 10 Technical Preview" is here it is an appropriate time to go through how to use the VHD files as a disk to install the OS. Which makes it possible to start the OS directly without going through a hypervisor, even though we use a VHD file as disk.
You need to have the Pro or Enterprise version of Windows Vista, 7, 8 or 8.1

 

I will assume that you have downloaded the required ISO file, links can be found in my blog post

http://olavtvedt.blogspot.no/2014/10/microsoft-jumps-over-number-9-windows.html

TechEd Amsterdam: Windows 8 To Go

You want to check out Windows 8 and don't have hardware to spare, can't run virtual or if just want to check if your computer can run Windows 8 ?

Then you might try Window 8 To Go. You need a USB drive with some space available, running it on USB 3 will of course give faster speed, but I have runned it on several USB 2 disk (memory stick and USB 2/3 often got to hot, so I use disks instead) without problem. I runned the developer preview on a Lacie Rugged Disk 500 GB (7200 rpm) and did several session on it at NIC 2012 and Utmessan on this solution without any hickups or problems

Windows Server 2012 Release Candidate Ready For Download

You can download either an ISO file or an VHD file. Cool that you can download a ready made VHD and just import it into Hyper-V and test it.

The Windows 8 Release Preview are also ready

First Server are now up and running