Native Boot To VHD Part IV - BCDEDIT Is The Magic

In this Video Series we will dive deep into a the new virtualization feature built into Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 called Native Boot To VHD. This is the one virtualization platform that allows virtualization inside of the virtualized machine. Yes, you can run Hyper-V or Virtual PC from inside a Boot to VHD machine. Running Boot to VHD gives you the capability to start playing with Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 right away. Just dual boot your machine. It is very clean, as the entire OS is in a vhd file. Having the OS fully encapsulated in a VHD means no changes needed to partiions and no confusion as to what files are for what OS.

 

Part I - Overview

Part II - Load OS to VHD On Bare Metal 

Part III - Load OS on VHD with OS already Installed On Metal 

Part IV - BCDEdit is the Magic

We will look at why you might want to get familiar with this great new technology. We will look at how to deploy it in different scenarios and we will take a deep dive into the boot technology (BCDEdit) that makes this new feature possible.Upon finishing this video series you will know how to setup a system with Boot To VHD. You will be able to deploy Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 in a VHD on a machine that is already running a new OS or a machine with nothing on it yet (bare metal).

 

Part IV - BCDEDIT Is The Magic is the forth in the series of sessions on Boot to VHD. In this sesssion, we look in detail at BCDEdit which is the boot configuration data manager. We show how to "customize" your boot to vhd configuration by changing the description of the displayed menu option as well as sequence, timeout, default entries, creating new entries and how to enable special features in the boot configuration data. We do not talk about the GUI for modifying the boot configuration data but if you are interested in checking it out, you can get there by running msconfig and clicking on the "Boot" tab. The GUI does not give you as much flexibility as the BCDEdit tool but if you want to make a quick change, it may be easier.