Is it possible to have "Differencing Disks" in Windows 7 VHD?

Question

I have used wim2vhd to make a vhd file to boot from.

I'm planning more vhd machines based on the same OS(windows 7 ultimate)

Can I have one "Master-VHD" witch contain the os, and smaler "Child-VHD"'s that inherit from the master? Or is this not possible in this scenario?

HW OS : Windows 7 Ultimate (6.1.7600 Build: 7600 )

Answer 1

Yes, it's possible.

Within diskpart, you can issue the following command to create a differencing file based on your master VHD (drive letters and filenames are just for example):

DISKPART> create vdisk file="D:\win7child1.vhd" parent="D:\win7master.vhd"

And no reason why you couldn't run that command multiple times to build a collection of child images:

DISKPART> create vdisk file="D:\win7child2.vhd" parent="D:\win7master.vhd"

DISKPART> create vdisk file="D:\win7child3.vhd" parent="D:\win7master.vhd"

And (just to illustrate that it can be done) you can create a child based on another child:

DISKPART> create vdisk file="D:\win7child3a.vhd" parent="D:\win7child3.vhd"

Once you've created all the child images you want, go into bcdedit and add them to new boot entries... and you're done!

HTH,

Mike Garrison [email protected]