Boot depuis un VHD, possible oui mais avec quelles versions de Windows 7

Le boot depuis un VHD est une des nouveautés de Windows 7 et de Windows Server 2008 R2, nous l’avons largement décrit et commenté sur ce blog https://blogs.technet.com/fabricem_blogs/archive/tags/Boot+sur+VHD/default.aspx mais bien que cette fonctionnalité soit possible en installant n’importe quelle version de Windows Server 2008 R2 sur le VHD, il n’est possible de booter depuis un VHD qu’avec les versions professionnel, entreprise et intégrale de Windows 7.

cf https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd440865(WS.10).aspx

In Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 you can configure a VHD for native boot. This means that a VHD can be used as the running operating system on designated hardware without a parent operating system, virtual machine, or hypervisor. Furthermore, if you use native boot, you have full access to all devices and file system volumes on the physical computer, including the volumes inside the VHD. In contrast, when Windows runs in a virtual machine, only one file system volume in the virtual disk (volume C:) is available to guest machines (unless you share another volume to the virtual machine).

Note the following functionality with native boot:

  • Native boot from VHD is only available with Windows 7 Enterprise, Windows 7 Ultimate and all versions of Windows Server 2008 R2.

  • When you perform a native boot, file system partitions that are contained in the VHD are automatically attached and the virtual volumes are visible.

  • Native-boot supports all three VHD file types: fixed, dynamic, and differencing. When you native boot from a dynamic VHD file, the VHD is automatically expanded to the maximum size. If the physical host volume of the VHD file does not have enough free disk space for the maximum size of the dynamic VHD, the boot process will fail.

  • Native-boot is supported on computers that have either BIOS-based or UEFI-based firmware.