Windows 10: Differencing Hard Disk - Hyper-V

I came across this option when creating a new had drive in Hyper-V.

Has anybody ever used one - is it analogous to e.g. a checkpoint, or an incremental image backup in Macrium Reflect?

When and how would you use it?





Edit - been reading up on it and they look quite cool for a test environment.

It is rather like a Macrium Differential image ie it contains all the changes from base version.

So you could have a base install, do a cumulative update in a differencing drive, test it, and if ok, merge the results (to original or new drive).

If you decide to discard the differencing drive you simply delete it and set the base drive as the drive in hyper-v.

Of course, you cannot modify the base drive and keep a differencing drive based on earlier version of base image.

One cool thing I see is ability to have a base image, then sysprep to a differencing drive, and then merge the base and differencing drive to a new drive.

One weakness dynamics vhds have is they grow as you do updates, but even if you delete stuff using disk cleanup, you cannot physically recover the space even if you use powershell shrink commands.

The usual solution is to copy partitions to a new vhd using tools like Minitool Partition Wizard or Macrium Reflect adjusting sizes to recover space.

I am hoping that if you merge a base and differencing drive to a new one, space is optimally recovered. My project this week :-D

:)

 

Hyper V deativication

Hi Geoffrey,

Hyper-V lets you run an operating system or computer system as a virtual machine on Windows. Before proceeding in disabling
Hyper-V, please create a backup of your files for security purposes.

To disable Hyper-V, please follow the steps below:

• On the Cortana search box, type Turn Windows Features on or off and press
  Enter.
• Look for the Hyper-V folder.
• Uncheck the tick-box next to the main Hyper-V folder and click
  OK.
• Restart your PC.

Should you have further questions, please let us know.

 

Where is the Hyper V Manager, How to I start it ?

I am trying to setup an XP virtual Machine on Windows 10 Pro.

I followed the steps in Neil Peterson article of 5/9/2016.

System Requirements - done - ok

Install Hyper-V - done - ok

Create a Virtual Switch - skip

Create a Virtual Machine

Create a Virtual Machine with Hyper-V Manager

These steps walk through how to manually create a virtual machine and deploy an operating system to this virtual machine.

• 
  In Hyper-V Manager, click Action > New >
  Virtual Machine to bring up the New
  

Uhhhhhhhhh - this step obviously implies one knows

1) Where the Hyper-V Manager is

2) How to start the Hyper-V Manager

Isn't that odd ?

 

Hyper-V

Hi Njha98,

You can remove Hyper-V by going to the control panel > add and remove programs > turn windows features on or off > and in the list there you should see Hyper-V

remove the checkbox and this will remove hyper-v

you may need to reboot