A nice to have tool – Disk2vhd

Posted: oktober 29th, 2009 | Author: Björn Axell | Filed under: Tool, Virtualization | No Comments »

In the past there have been some free and easy to use tools for converting a physical machines to Vmware vmdk disks but I haven’t found any if you want to create a vhd. Of course you can use System Center Virtual Machine Manager but that is not always what you have i mind. Some weeks ago Microsoft released a small tool that do just this.

Download the Disk2vhd from Microsoft (you can even run it directly from from Live.Sysinternals.com)
Start the machine you want to convert (Windows XP SP2, Windows Server 2003 SP1, and higher, including x64 systems)
Copy the tool to the machine and follow the wizard

A nice to have tool – Windows 7 USB DVD Download Tool

Posted: oktober 29th, 2009 | Author: Björn Axell | Filed under: Windows, Windows 7 | No Comments »

If you have a Notebook and want to install a fresh Windows 7 you have a “small problem” – you probably won’t find a DVD. Another situation can be if you want to install Windows 2008 R2 on your server (it might be an older system with a CD). To fix this problem you need to create a USB disk to boot from. This can be done “manually", but now Microsoft released a tool that makes this a bit easier.

Download and install the tool from Microsoft
Download Windows 7/ Windows Server 2008 R2 as ISO
Start Windows 7 USB DVD Download Tool and follow the wizard (in the example below I use the Windows 2008 R2 ISO)