Using the built-in features of Windows 7 to manage virtual disks

I believe many of my friends know that the VHD (Virtual Hard Disk) file format is an image file specially designed for Virtual PC, Virtual Server 2005, and Hyper-V virtual machines. Virtual PC 2007 already provides support for VHD image formats, or we can use WinMount3 to mount VHD files as a virtual disk.

However, if you have already used Windows 7, you can use its built-in disk management function to mount VHD files directly, or even create a virtual disk manually, which is undoubtedly simpler and very operation-oriented. Simple, here are two examples to illustrate the relevant steps:

Example 1: Mounting a VHD file

Using Windows 7 to mount a virtual disk file in VHD format is not only easier to operate. And you can save the trouble of installing WinMount3, the specific steps are as follows:

Step 1: Enter the control panel, open the "Computer Management" window, if you have set the display Computer icon on the desktop, then you can Right click and select “Manage” to open the window.

Step 2: Select “ldquo;Storage” from the left navigation pane, right click on “Disk Management”, as shown in Figure 1, select “<quo;Attach VHD” from the shortcut menu”. Next, a dialog box will pop up asking for the path where the VHD file is located. Click the “Browse” button to specify it.

Figure 1 Windows 7 mounts a virtual disk file in VHD format

Step 3:

After completing the above settings, click “OK&rdquo After the button closes the dialog box and returns to the disk management window, as shown in Figure 2, we can see that a disk that has not been initialized has been added to the disk "Disk2" (the name here depends on the local computer's hard disk loading). This is the mounted virtual disk, and the autorun function of the disk will pop up the autoplay window. Select “Open folder to view files” to access the contents.

Figure 2 Virtual Disks Loaded in Windows 7

The next operation is much simpler. Return to the Explorer window to access the virtual machine just mounted. A disk is no different from operating a local disk.