Windows 10: Redistributing a Windows VHD Image

Hello.

I cannot find the original source for 'MICROSOFT SOFTWARE LICENSE TERMS FOR A VIRTUAL HARD DISK IMAGE'.
For example following 3rd-party service offers a virtual disk imagefor acquaintance purposes via 'Download Evaluation Images' + EULA
My question is - should I be a Microsoft partner to do the same for evaluation/demo/education purposes only, no license ? If I should be a partner - what type of partnership is it?
Or, I may distribute the VHD images, provided I guarantee that the image will not be available on the public Internet via a direct link.
And distribute the image via a temporary unique link only when the user accepts EULA how doescloudbase solution

:)

 

Attaching a VHD

I am running Windows 10, the latest build and created a Windows Image Backup image with Backup and Restore (Windows 7) from the control panel.

To see if it works, I opened Disk Management and clicked on Action - Attach VHD and clicked on the VHD file, which is located on an external USB drive, but after that, no VHD was created, tried doing a Refresh and Rescan Disks and still no VHD drive.

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks

 

fragmented disk image

Hi Brandon,

VHD (Virtual Hard Disk) is a file that represents a virtual hard drive and contains what is normally found on a physical hard disk drive. You can try to mount the VHD images to extract and recover the file by following the steps below:

• Right-click on Start Menu and select Disk Management.
• On the Disk Management window, click Action and select
  Attach VHD.
• Click Browse, navigate to and select the VHD file, click
  Open, then OK.
  
• You can now proceed to browse, copy and open files from the mounted VHD.

Note: You may have to mount all VHD files to extract a single disk image file from it.

Get back to us if you need further assistance.

 

Windows 10 VHD Native Boot Installation--Officially Supported?

I apologize for not seeing your reference and leaving an incomplete solution ;

Not sure where you are at in this so I am providing a breakdown with an overview.

It appears they do not mention Windows 10, however the mention Windows 8 to using the .vhdx file format.
Hope this helps:

I am just now getting to exploring the use of VHDs for booting some Virtual machines.

I have included a more complete background on VHDs for you and others that maybe exploring this topic.

• 
  The local disk must have at least two partitions: a system partition that contains the Windows 8 boot-environment files and Boot Configuration Data (BCD) store, and a partition to store the VHD file. The .vhd file format is supported for native boot on a
  computer with a Windows® 7 boot environment, but you will have to update the system partition to a Windows 8 environment to use the .vhdx file format. For more information about how to add a Windows 8 boot environment for native VHD boot, see
  
  Download and install Windows PE (WinPE) so you can boot from a USB flash drive or an external USB hard drive.
  
• 
  The local disk partition that contains the VHD file must have enough free disk space for expanding a dynamic VHD to its maximum size and for the page file created when booting the VHD. The page file is created outside the VHD file, unlike with a virtual
  machine where the page file is contained inside the VHD.
  

This was from a recent Article :

Understanding Virtual Hard Disks with Native Boot
Last Updated: 5/4/2016;

VHDs with native boot are frequently used in the following scenarios:

• 
  Using disk-management tools to create and attach a VHD for offline image management. You can attach a VHD by using the
  Attach vdisk command which activates the VHD so that it appears on the host as a disk drive instead of as a .vhd file.
  
• 
  Mounting reference VHD images on remote shares for image servicing.
  
• 
  Maintaining and deploying a common reference VHD image to execute in either virtual or physical computers.
  
• 
  Configuring VHD files for native boot without requiring a full parent installation.
  
• 
  Configuring a computer to boot multiple local VHD files that contain different application workloads, without requiring separate disk partitions.
  
• 
  Using Windows Deployment Services (WDS) for network deployment of VHD images to target computers for native boot.
  
• 
  Managing desktop image deployment.
  

Deploy Windows on a VHD (Native Boot)

Last Updated: 7/20/2016

Create and deploy virtual hard disks (VHDs) with native-boot capabilities to test devices or to manage multiple operating systems on a device without re-partitioning the drive.

Creating VHDs
You can create virtual hard disks (.vhd or .vhdx files) using the DiskPart tool or the Disk Management Microsoft Management Console (MMC). You can create .vhdx files from PowerShell when you have the Hyper-V Manager Role installed.

You can attach the VHD so that it appears as a system drive that you can partition, format, and apply your operating system to.

Deploying VHDs
You can deploy a supported Windows image to an attached VHD using disk-imaging software such as the Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) tool. The VHD can then be copied to one or more systems either to run in a virtual machine or for native
boot.

For more information, see
Download and install Windows PE (WinPE) so you can boot from a USB flash drive or an external USB hard drive.

On first native boot, the specialize configuration pass runs and computer-specific information is applied to the Windows operating system on the VHD. The instance of the VHD cannot be copied onto another system or run in a virtual machine after
the specialize configuration pass is completed. The original VHD that has a Windows image can continue to be copied and deployed to multiple computers, if the image has already been prepared for installation using the Sysprep tool with the
/specialize option. You can also use an answer file to prepare the image for installation by using the Microsoft-Windows-Deployment | Generalize setting. For more information about the
specialize and generalize configuration passes, see

Windows Setup Configuration Passes. For more information about how to use the Generalize setting in an answer file, see the Windows® Unattended Setup Reference.

The Windows Deployment Server role supports deployment of VHD image files in addition to .wim files. Windows Deployment Server automates the network deployment of VHD images for native-boot usage. Windows Deployment Server can be used to copy the VHD image
to a local partition, and to configure the local Boot Configuration Data (BCD) for native boot from the VHD.