Performance on physical VHDX vs Native HDD (SSD) - NOT VM

Hi folks
On an older laptop I can't really notice any performance problems with running W11 from a "Physical" VHDX file compared with running it from a "Native" SSD. Note these are physical Virtual Harddisks -- not Virtual machines so each Windows system runs as a "Real Windows system" -- i,e you can't run them concurrently etc as per Virtual machines.

I'm not really intrested in "Microsecs difference - bench mark stats" -- as an ordinary user I really can't see any difference -- there may well be some of course.
The only difference is slightly longer boot -- and that's because it displays the boot menu as I have 3 possible VHDX systems that can be booted.

Anybody tried this stuff on more modern really snappier hardware.

Cheers
jimbo

I haven't tried it yet. My computer had a regular Win 10 installation and another Win 10 installation with native VHD boot. Now my main OS is upgraded to Win 11 but the VHD OS is still on Win 10.
How can I upgrade Windows in the VHD? Boot it as a virtual machine, or can this be done natively?

Ben Hastings said:

I haven't tried it yet. My computer had a regular Win 10 installation and another Win 10 installation with native VHD boot. Now my main OS is upgraded to Win 11 but the VHD OS is still on Win 10.
How can I upgrade Windows in the VHD? Boot it as a virtual machine, or can this be done natively?

Click to expand...

You cannot upgrade version from 10 to 11 natively in a vhd As you surmised, you have to attach vhd to a virtual machine.

Ben Hastings said:

I haven't tried it yet. My computer had a regular Win 10 installation and another Win 10 installation with native VHD boot. Now my main OS is upgraded to Win 11 but the VHD OS is still on Win 10.
How can I upgrade Windows in the VHD? Boot it as a virtual machine, or can this be done natively?

Click to expand...

Hi there

@Ben Hastings

Use VHDX Virtual disks rather than VHD's when creating Virtual disks.

It's still a relatively quick process from your running VHDX Windows system -- save existing windows/system32/Driverstore somewhere first

1) create a VM from the vhdx -- use Macrium's VIBOOT - available also on the free version to quickly create a VM from the vhdx.
2) update the VM to new build --
3) image it
4) restore to existing vhdx via macrium etc
5) with bootable "stand alone restore" macrium attach the vhdx
6) run fix boot problems
7) use deploy image to new hardware.

If using Macrium stand alone bootable recovery - create it using the PE WIM version -- choose WIM in the advanced settings when creating the media -- for W11 it works better (IMO) than the default version using the RE WIM.

You can use a standard winpe bootable device (Winpe freely available as an Ms download) if you don't have the deploy to new hardware from paid version of Macrium -- just recreate the boot loader - and after booting the vhdx go down the device manager and use against devices that need driver updates to update drivers - browse computer and point to the driverstore file you saved.

To re-create the boot loader - assume the VHDX is attached as volume V and its system partition is S then
V:\
cd v:\windows\system32
bcdboot v:\windows /s S: /f UEFI

Q.E.D !!! (not Quod Erat Demonstandum but in modern English : Quite Easily Done).

Cheers
jimbo

Ben Hastings said:

I haven't tried it yet. My computer had a regular Win 10 installation and another Win 10 installation with native VHD boot. Now my main OS is upgraded to Win 11 but the VHD OS is still on Win 10.
How can I upgrade Windows in the VHD? Boot it as a virtual machine, or can this be done natively?

Click to expand...

Tutorial on our sister site Ten Forums:

Kari