Hyper-V - Native Boot VHD

computerized · 26 Jan 2017

Kari said:

The answer is a very clear Yes and No

Theoretically? Yes. Doable? Again, yes if conditions are met. Practical? No, never.

The host, physical machine must be first migrated to a virtual hard disk (see Wikipedia: Physical to Virtual P2V). I've written a tutorial about P2V using Disk2VHD.

The guest OS on VHD you'd use in native boot would then need to be big enough to host this P2V file. Now boot natively to your VHD, and use the P2V file, your virtualised host to set up a VM using that P2V file as existing VHD. Another option is to leave P2V VHD stored on host, any drive that allows it to expand to its full capacity; Windows on native boot VHD has access to host drives so a VM could be set up with P2V VHD as existing VHD stored on another computer, in this case on host.

Of course this is not practical. P2V VHD made from your host is not the same machine than your physical host. Changes on host, data or software added, modified or removed are not shown on P2V VHD, and vice versa.

Macrium is about the best tool to fix Windows boot issues, a feature often forgotten.

Kari

Thanks for the detailed answer Kari!

I will go forward with live migration to another host instead!

Kari · 27 Jan 2017

computerized said:

Thanks for the detailed answer Kari!

I will go forward with live migration to another host instead!

One practical solution I didn't mention in my previous post is Macrium viBoot. Create a system image of your Windows installation on physical PC with Macrium Reflect, then with viBoot use that image as a Hyper-V virtual machine.

See tutorials:

Kari

Fafhrd · 07 Apr 2017

Not only do Microsoft offer Enterprise trial VHDs ready made as in the tutorial first post, Enterprise Developer VHDs (Left hand side, screenshot below), and Licensed (Right hand side) Pro Development VHD downloads are available:

The VHD (HyperV) download is about 20GB, and initially you will need about 65GB available for the 20GB zip archive, plus the extracted VHD & VM files, but you can then delete the zipfile if wished. It is best to allow at least 130GB for growth of the system with use. They do not need installation, just the OOBE routines for locale settings, user and EULA agreement etc. so they will often run on systems that complain about setup for unknown reasons.

Natively booting the VHD on a machine that is digitally licensed for Pro, in place of your existing Windows 10 Professional copy gives you the full configured Windows development tools, which you can of course upgrade base system to Creators Update in a VM, and upgrade the component development kits as required, or alternatively wait until Microsoft update the Software in the Development VHDs, and download fresh, which seems to be every 3 months or so, so far.

You aren't limited to Hyper V, since other VM managers Like VirtualBox use VHDs as well.

It can be quite a surreal experience, leaving your native-booting VHD upgrading in a VM, and when you return some while later, your Native booting VHD is just ready to sign you in on the lock-screen, or if you have Netplwiz auto signed in, go straight to the desktop.

lx07 · 07 Apr 2017

Fafhrd said:

Natively booting the VHD on a machine that is digitally licensed for Pro, in place of your existing Windows 10 Professional copy gives you the full configured Windows development tools, which you can of course upgrade base system to Creators Update in a VM

Just to clarify, you can only upgrade them as a VM. You can't upgrade a native boot VHD.

tracit99 · 06 May 2017

@Kari,
Great tutorial. I was able to boot a vhdx file and only had to make a few changes once started. The show stopper right now is no network connection. I cannot use my Ethernet LAN because it is incompatible with Windows 1703 and I have disabled it. The WIFI shows to be OK in Device Manager but does not show up in Network Settings. Any idea how to fix this issue?

Hyper-V - Native Boot VHD-device-manager.jpg

Hyper-V - Native Boot VHD-network-settings.jpg

Hyper-V - Native Boot VHD-network-connections.jpg

Kari · 06 May 2017

It seems that your WLAN adapter is OK, it's just not connected to any networks. Disable WLAN NIC, re-enable it and connect to your WiFi.

tracit99 · 06 May 2017

Okay, Kari I try that. Be right back.

tracit99 · 06 May 2017

I gave it a shoot and no luck. I even uninstalled WLAN NIC and let Windows find it again. I added a Network Connections screenshot to my original post. WLAN NIC is not showing up here despite showing fine in the Device Manager. I haven't got a clue what is going on.

Kari · 06 May 2017

I can't help you.

The fact is that when Windows is booted from a VHD, system sees and treats it as any physical installation on that same hardware. That a NIC does not work or does not find correct drivers, not even be shown in network adapters has nothing to do with Windows being installed on VHD instead of HDD. For system, a natively booted VHD is as any hard disk. All hardware devices and drivers used are the same as if the same Windows version and edition would be clean installed on physical disk on that same machine.

If there is a solution for your issue, I don't know. I would start with running network troubleshooter. When searching for help, you will see that this issue is not uncommon: Network adapter not shown - Bing

Kari

Mystere · 06 May 2017

Kari said:

The answer is a very clear Yes and No

Theoretically? Yes. Doable? Again, yes if conditions are met. Practical? No, never.

The host, physical machine must be first migrated to a virtual hard disk (see Wikipedia:

I know this is old, but I seem to recall that there is a way to run a VM off of a physical disk, rather than a VHD. Couldn't it be possible to run the original host as a physical disk within your native boot VHD?