Virtualization Testing Macrium Reflect restore using VirtualBox virtual machine


virtualbox_banner.png

When making your first Macrium Reflect image of your PC the final test that the image is full and complete would be to boot from the Reflect rescue media and perform a full restore. This is not something you'd want to risk trying just as a test, so many do not do a restore until circumstances mean that they have to do it for real. That is perhaps not the best time to learn how to restore, and it's certainly a very bad time to find out that your image is missing an important partition.

This article offers a safe way to practice a full bare metal restore to a new machine, without risking destroying your PC if it goes badly wrong. Rather than restoring to your (perhaps only) PC the restore will be performed in a Virtual Machine (VM). Hyper-V is only available in Windows 11 Pro, so this tutorial will use Oracle VirtualBox, a free Open Source solution that can run on both Home and Pro editions.


Requirements before you start:

A PC with Windows 11 installed (recommended minimum 8GB RAM, preferably using an SSD rather than an HDD).
Macrium Reflect v8 installed (Free will do).
Oracle VirtualBox installed.

1 Preparation
If you have not done so already, install Macrium Reflect and make a system image of your PC to an external hard drive.


Download and install Oracle VirtualBox. There are no special requirements, just a default install.


2 Create Reflect rescue media

In order to restore a Macrium image you'll need to boot the machine from the Reflect rescue media. For a VM you will need to make an ISO of the rescue media so that you can attach it to the VM's virtual CD/DVD drive.

Open Reflect. Click on the Rescue icon, top left. Select ISO File and set a destination to save it to.

Reflect - make ISO.png


3 Create a new VirtualBox VM

Open the VirtualBox Manager and click on the 'New' icon. You will open the 'Create a new virtual machine' window in 'Guided mode'. There is no need to switch to 'Expert Mode', the defaults will create a suitable VM.

VirtualBox -Welcome.png


Select the Type as Microsoft Windows, and the Version as Windows 11 (64 bit), then click Next. This will create a VM with EFI enabled, suitable for restoring an image of a Windows 11 that was installed on a supported device.

VirtualBox -Create VM.png



4 Set RAM for the VM

The next step is to set the physical RAM allocated to the VM. Note that when the VM is running it has exclusive use of this RAM, and that as a consequence the RAM available to your Host machine's Windows is reduced by this amount. If you have 8GB or more installed RAM then accept the default and click Next.

It is possible to run a VM if you only have 4GB installed RAM, but it will be slow. You'll need to set just 2GB for the VM to use, leaving the other 2GB for your Host PC's own Windows. Both your Host and the VM will be short of memory and there will be a lot of swapfile activity.



VirtualBox -Create VM (memory).png



5 Set virtual disk for the VM

Next comes setting up the virtual disk for the VM to use. In most cases clicking Next to accept the defaults offered will be sufficient. The size of disk you create does not have to be as large as the one you made a Reflect image of, but it does have to be large enough to hold the total used space from your image.

Reflect will resize the restored partitions to fit the available space, but only if there is enough space to hold all the used data.

VirtualBox -Create VM (disk size).png
VirtualBox -Create VM (disk type).png

VirtualBox -Create VM (disk storage type).png
Vitualbox - disk location.png



6 Attach rescue media ISO

You have now created virtual machine, but it has no OS yet. You now need to set it up so it can boot it from the Reflect rescue ISO you made in Step 2. To do that you need to insert the ISO into the VM's virtual optical drive. In the settings for your new VM click on [Optical Drive] Empty under Storage, then browse and find your rescue ISO.

VirtualBox -add ISO to VM.png


7 Make your Reflect image available to restore

In order to restore your Macrium Reflect image your VM has to be able to find it. The easiest way to do that is to make the HDD that holds the image available as a network share. Your new VM has a network adapter, and when booted from the Reflect recovery ISO it will be able to see shares on the Host machine.

Plug the USB HDD that holds your image into your Host PC. On the Share tab, share the drive and grant Full control share permission for Everyone. Click the OK button on each window to close it and set up sharing.


HDD share permission for everyone (with notes).png


Note the Network Path for your share, you will need this later.

HDD - network path.png



8 Set file permissions

Now you also need to set the NTFS permissions for the drive to give Full Control for Everyone on the Security tab. To do that you will first have to add Everyone.

HDD add ntfs permission for everyone.png


You will see a few reports that you are unable to set permissions for some system folders. This is normal and can be ignored.

HDD add ntfs permission error (ignore).png




8 Start your VM

You are now ready to start the VM for the first time. You will see a 'Press any key to boot from DVD...' notice. Do so and you will boot from the Reflect recovery ISO.

Reflect in VM - booting up.png


9 Map network drive

You will now need to map a network drive to the HDD being shared by your Host machine. Click Browse for an image file... then click the Map Network Drive icon at the top left of the Select an image file... window. Use the network path you noted earlier from Step 7. You will not need to provide a user name or password.

Reflect in VM - map share.png


Then you will be able to find your .mrimg file and restore it as if you were using a physical machine.

Reflect in VM - found image.png


Reflect in VM - restored.png



9 Booting the restored virtual machine

The first time your restored VM boots Windows will find that its hardware has changed. It will spend a little while installing new drivers....


VirtualBox - VM getting devices ready.png


When it had finished getting devices ready it should then reboot to your working restored machine.

VirtualBox - VM logging in.png




10 Tidying up afterwards.

You should stop sharing the external HDD once you have finished using it, but before you eject it from the Host machine.

The object of this exercise was to practice a full restore without risking your PC, and to test that the Reflect image was a complete and working image of your PC.

You may want to keep this VM, but you should note that, as a new machine, it will not be activated by your Host machine's digital license. Any VM counts as a different machine and would require activating in its own right with a new key.

Most people would want to delete the VM after a successful test, releasing the (very real) space its virtual drive has taken up on your PC. To do that, select Machine > Remove in the Oracle VirtualBox Manager. You will be able to delete both the VM and all its files.

VirtualBox - remove VM.png




11 Some notes on screen resolution

Depending on the resolution of your Host machine's screen, you may find the VirtualBox VM window cannot display the whole of the VM's screen at one time, having scroll bars so that you can move around and see the rest of it. You can switch the window to Scaled Mode, where the VM's screen is scaled to fit inside a window that you can resize to suit you display.

With VirtualBox you can at any time switch from Normal to Scaled Mode from the window's View menu, or by pressing Host+C. The 'Host' key is by default your Host machine's right hand Ctrl key.

VirtualBox - VM - select Scale Mode.png


In Scaled Mode you will see all of your VM's screen. You can switch back to Normal mode by pressing Host+C again. You can also switch to Full-screen Mode using Host+F.

VirtualBox - VM - in Scale Mode.png





That's it,

Bree.
 

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Wowzer, Bree! You've outdone yourself!

And now I know why I didn't attempt this tutorial myself! :eek1:

Thank you very much. I am now going to try to follow in your steps!
 

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    Windows 11
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Great tutorial @Bree.

These comments are additional for information, and CERTAINLY not a intended as a criticism of the tutorial.

However if you are JUST doing it to test a restore of an image, I think it is easier to use Macrium ViBoot.

It's a pity that Virtualbox is slightly limited to the extent you cannot natively boot the virtual hard drives created in VM in W10/11 (unlike Hyper-V).

TBH, probably the easiest method for testing a Macrium image restore is to simply create a vhdx file from disk management, restoring Reflect image to that vhdx file and add a native boot entry. This really tests the restore as it uses host drivers. You do not even need to install any virtual machine software to do it this way.

I see the real value in this tutorial for when you want to play with the installation, and test things in a safer setup - not quite a sandbox, but still isolated to an extent from Host OS (unless you connect host drives to vm which increases risk to Host OS).
 
Last edited:

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if you are JUST doing it to test a restore of an image, I think it is easier to use Macrium ViBoot.
I agree, but Wynona had specifically asked for a tutorial on doing a real Macrium Reflect restore for her pupils. She has already taught then to use Reflect Free and wants them to be confident that they can do a restore if/when needed.

She didn't want to risk bricking their PCs just for a lesson, so wanted a way to do it that was safe. Most of then have Home editions, so VirtualBox was the natural choice.
 

My Computers

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  • OS
    Windows 11 Home
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    Acer Aspire 3 A315-23
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    AMD Athlon Silver 3050U
    Memory
    8GB
    Graphics Card(s)
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    laptop screen
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    1TB Samsung EVO 870 SSD
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    50 Mbps
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    fully 'Windows 11 ready' laptop. Windows 10 C: partition migrated from my old unsupported 'main machine' then upgraded to 11. A test migration ran Insider builds for 2 months. When 11 was released on 5th October it was re-imaged back to 10 and was offered the upgrade in Windows Update on 20th October. Windows Update offered the 22H2 Feature Update on 20th September 2022. It got the 23H2 Feature Update on 4th November 2023 through Windows Update.

    My SYSTEM THREE is a Dell Latitude 5410, i7-10610U, 32GB RAM, 512GB ssd, supported device running Windows 11 Pro (and all my Hyper-V VMs).

    My SYSTEM FOUR is a 2-in-1 convertible Lenovo Yoga 11e 20DA, Celeron N2930, 4GB RAM, 256GB ssd. Unsupported device: currently running Win10 Pro, plus Win11 Pro RTM and Insider Beta as native boot vhdx.

    My SYSTEM FIVE is a Dell Latitude 3190 2-in-1, Pentium Silver N5030, 4GB RAM, 512GB NVMe ssd, supported device running Windows 11 Pro, plus the Insider Beta, Dev, and Canary builds as a native boot .vhdx.
  • Operating System
    Windows 11 Pro
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    Laptop
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    Dell Lattitude E4310
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    Intel® Core™ i5-520M
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    0T6M8G
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    8GB
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    (integrated graphics) Intel HD Graphics
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    1366x768
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    500GB Crucial MX500 SSD
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    unsupported machine: Legacy bios, MBR, TPM 1.2, upgraded from W10 to W11 using W10/W11 hybrid install media workaround. In-place upgrade to 22H2 using ISO and a workaround. Feature Update to 23H2 by manually installing the Enablement Package.

    My SYSTEM THREE is a Dell Latitude 5410, i7-10610U, 32GB RAM, 512GB ssd, supported device running Windows 11 Pro (and all my Hyper-V VMs).

    My SYSTEM FOUR is a 2-in-1 convertible Lenovo Yoga 11e 20DA, Celeron N2930, 4GB RAM, 256GB ssd. Unsupported device: currently running Win10 Pro, plus Win11 Pro RTM and Insider Beta as native boot vhdx.

    My SYSTEM FIVE is a Dell Latitude 3190 2-in-1, Pentium Silver N5030, 4GB RAM, 512GB NVMe ssd, supported device running Windows 11 Pro, plus the Insider Beta, Dev, and Canary builds as a native boot .vhdx.
I agree, but Wynona had specifically asked for a tutorial on doing a Macrium Reflect install for her pupils. She has already taught then to use Reflect Free and wants them to be confident that they can do a restore if/when needed. Most of then have Home editions, so VirtualBox was the natural choice.
Sure - as part of learning curve, this is great.

Of course, principles can be extended to other vms or image tools (once you understand the principles).
 

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    Yep, Laptop has one.
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    16 GB
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    1 TB Optane NVME SSD, 1 TB NVME SSD
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@Bree a great tut and as @cereberus said it can be extended to other VMs. My personal favourite free VM is VMware Workstation 16 Player.
 

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    ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. X509DA (FP5)
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    Samsung 980 1 TB PCIe 3.0 NVMe M.2
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    25 Mbps
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    180 Watt, 19.5 V
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    Lenovo Bluetooth
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    25 Mbps
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Great tutorial @Bree.

These comments are additional for information, and CERTAINLY not a intended as a criticism of the tutorial.

However if you are JUST doing it to test a restore of an image, I think it is easier to use Macrium ViBoot.

It's a pity that Virtualbox is slightly limited to the extent you cannot natively boot the virtual hard drives created in VM in W10/11 (unlike Hyper-V).

TBH, probably the easiest method for testing a Macrium image restore is to simply create a vhdx file from disk management, restoring Reflect image to that vhdx file and add a native boot entry. This really tests the restore as it uses host drivers. You do not even need to install any virtual machine software to do it this way.

I see the real value in this tutorial for when you want to play with the installation, and test things in a safer setup - not quite a sandbox, but still isolated to an extent from Host OS (unless you connect host drives to vm which increases risk to Host OS).
I think you can only boot from vhdx with w11 Pro.
 

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  • OS
    Windows 10 version 22H2 and W11 Dev.
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    HP
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    i7 7500U
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    HP
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    8GB
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    NVIDIA Geforce 940MX
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Wow, I gave this tutorial the top 'Great Support' icon (I could not find the icon in the smilies dropdown or I would have inserted the icon multiple times)

I fit the notion of 'someone who JUST wants a verification option for Macrium Reflect images' and took the following shortcut:

1. Install viBoot (it was not part of the default Macrium Reflect installation)
2. Install VirtualBox
3. From within Macrium Reflect select an image
4. Click the viBoot icon
5. Click OK on the defaults > wait a few moments > viBoot VM runs with the selected image, play around, etc.
6. Shutdown and delete viBoot VM (in the viBoot console)

Of course, this tutorial goes a lot broader and a lot deeper (y)
 

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Excellent Tutorial @Bree. Very detailed and easy to follow.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10 version 22H2 and W11 Dev.
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    Laptop
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    HP
    CPU
    i7 7500U
    Motherboard
    HP
    Memory
    8GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVIDIA Geforce 940MX
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1080
    Hard Drives
    Internal 256GB Samsung SSD plus UB3/2 attached 500GB Samsung SSD, 256GB WD SSD, 3TB WD HDD, 2TB WD HDD. 1.5TB Samsung HDD, and 7GB Network storage
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    200Mb/sec
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    Chrome, FF, Opera, Edgium.
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    MS Defender, Malwarebytes

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10 Pro + others in VHDs
    Computer type
    Laptop
    Manufacturer/Model
    ASUS Vivobook 14
    CPU
    I7
    Motherboard
    Yep, Laptop has one.
    Memory
    16 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Integrated Intel Iris XE
    Sound Card
    Realtek built in
    Monitor(s) Displays
    N/A
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1080
    Hard Drives
    1 TB Optane NVME SSD, 1 TB NVME SSD
    PSU
    Yep, got one
    Case
    Yep, got one
    Cooling
    Stella Artois
    Keyboard
    Built in
    Mouse
    Bluetooth , wired
    Internet Speed
    72 Mb/s :-(
    Browser
    Edge mostly
    Antivirus
    Defender
    Other Info
    TPM 2.0

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10 version 22H2 and W11 Dev.
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    Laptop
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    HP
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    i7 7500U
    Motherboard
    HP
    Memory
    8GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVIDIA Geforce 940MX
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1080
    Hard Drives
    Internal 256GB Samsung SSD plus UB3/2 attached 500GB Samsung SSD, 256GB WD SSD, 3TB WD HDD, 2TB WD HDD. 1.5TB Samsung HDD, and 7GB Network storage
    Mouse
    Logitech M705
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    200Mb/sec
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    Chrome, FF, Opera, Edgium.
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    MS Defender, Malwarebytes
Great tutorial @Bree.

These comments are additional for information, and CERTAINLY not a intended as a criticism of the tutorial.

However if you are JUST doing it to test a restore of an image, I think it is easier to use Macrium ViBoot.

It's a pity that Virtualbox is slightly limited to the extent you cannot natively boot the virtual hard drives created in VM in W10/11 (unlike Hyper-V).

TBH, probably the easiest method for testing a Macrium image restore is to simply create a vhdx file from disk management, restoring Reflect image to that vhdx file and add a native boot entry. This really tests the restore as it uses host drivers. You do not even need to install any virtual machine software to do it this way.

I see the real value in this tutorial for when you want to play with the installation, and test things in a safer setup - not quite a sandbox, but still isolated to an extent from Host OS (unless you connect host drives to vm which increases risk to Host OS).

I agree -- but it's probably easier to create a vhdx and do macrium restore to that - in addition you are testing it on ACTUAL hardware. Setting up VBOX can be a pain as well --I've used VM's for years and always have shied away from VBOX.

I don't think teaching the students to set up a vhdx for this job would be too difficult.

In fact it would be a great tutorial as you would be able to teach them how to clone their existing system to a vhdx, back it up, delete the data in it, restore from the backup and boot.

That IMO would be a complete testing script for Macrium backup / restore. including "Bare metal".

Running VM's on different hardware if you are teaching students with a variety of machines is a lottery in itself but running Macrium on standard Windows hardware IMO makes far better sense.

Not to decry the work here though -- as there's a perfectly good case for doing it that way too.

Note -- if you "clone" a current Windows install to a vhdx file (don't forget to install the bootloader) you keep your Windows activation too - no matter how many copies you have.

If you create a new Windows system via VBOX / VMWARE you will probably end up with a Windows that requires activation which could cause a problem when wanting to set the display etc etc. (I got round that on VM by creating vhdx files in the VM and cloning physical system) but whether that's possible on VMware / VBOX --no idea.

I say again - great tutorial but IMO better to use physical hardware for this stuff rather than a Virtual machine which could cause various unneccessary complications for students.

Teaching them to use Diskpart (or even within the windows GUI) to create vhdx files and attach them as disks is really easy and much less complex than installing a Virtual machine.


Cheers
jimbo
 
Last edited:

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Excellent Tutorial ... very detailed and easy to understand, great job @Bree. (y)
 

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    Intel Core i9-9900K @5.0GHz
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    1920x1080@60Hz
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With a slight modification, this tutorial can be simplified/modified to be a good "how to use VB" tutorial e.g. how to clean install W10.

Only problem is Virtualbox does not yet officially support TPM emulation for W11 but allegedly, you can now do it with a test version.
 

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System One

  • OS
    Windows 10 Pro + others in VHDs
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    ASUS Vivobook 14
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    I7
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    Yep, Laptop has one.
    Memory
    16 GB
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    Integrated Intel Iris XE
    Sound Card
    Realtek built in
    Monitor(s) Displays
    N/A
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1080
    Hard Drives
    1 TB Optane NVME SSD, 1 TB NVME SSD
    PSU
    Yep, got one
    Case
    Yep, got one
    Cooling
    Stella Artois
    Keyboard
    Built in
    Mouse
    Bluetooth , wired
    Internet Speed
    72 Mb/s :-(
    Browser
    Edge mostly
    Antivirus
    Defender
    Other Info
    TPM 2.0
Great tutorial @Bree.

These comments are additional for information, and CERTAINLY not a intended as a criticism of the tutorial.

However if you are JUST doing it to test a restore of an image, I think it is easier to use Macrium ViBoot.

It's a pity that Virtualbox is slightly limited to the extent you cannot natively boot the virtual hard drives created in VM in W10/11 (unlike Hyper-V).

TBH, probably the easiest method for testing a Macrium image restore is to simply create a vhdx file from disk management, restoring Reflect image to that vhdx file and add a native boot entry. This really tests the restore as it uses host drivers. You do not even need to install any virtual machine software to do it this way.

I see the real value in this tutorial for when you want to play with the installation, and test things in a safer setup - not quite a sandbox, but still isolated to an extent from Host OS (unless you connect host drives to vm which increases risk to Host OS).
Good morning, Rod.

Problem is that most, if not all of them have Windows Home. Windows Home won't let us use Hyper-V which Macrium needs for ViBoot. Kind of a ring-around-the-rosies situation. If you don't got this, you can't use that! Grrrrrrrrrrr!

I know there's a way to install Hyper-V onto a Home system, but at this point, I need to give them the simplest tutorial possible.

Upgrading to Pro would be an option, but in light of the fact that we're mostly all on fixed income, well . . . ring-around-the-rosies
 

My Computers

System One System Two

  • OS
    Windows 11 23H2 22631.2861
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Manufacturer/Model
    HP Envy TE01-1xxx
    CPU
    Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10700 CPU @ 2.90GHz 2.90 GHz
    Motherboard
    16.0GB Dual-Channel Unknown @ 1463MHz (21-21-21-47)
    Memory
    16384 MBytes
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel UHD Graphics 630
    Sound Card
    Realtek High Definition Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Monitor 1 - Acer 27" Monitor 2 - Acer 27"
    Screen Resolution
    1920 x 1080
    Hard Drives
    WDC PC SN530 SDBPNPZ-512G-1006 (SSD)
    Seagate ST1000DM003-1SB102
    Seagate BUP Slim SCSI Disk Device (SSD)
    PSU
    HP
    Case
    HP
    Cooling
    Standard
    Keyboard
    Logitech Wave K350
    Mouse
    Logitech M705
    Internet Speed
    500 mbps
    Browser
    Firefox
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
    Other Info
    That's all Folks!
  • Operating System
    Windows 11
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Manufacturer/Model
    HP
    CPU
    Intel Core i7 (10th gen) 10700
    Motherboard
    Intel
    Memory
    16 GB
    Graphics card(s)
    Intel UHD Graphics 630
    Sound Card
    Built-in
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Acer 27" & Samsung 24"
    Screen Resolution
    1920 x
    Hard Drives
    SSD (512 GB)
    HDD (1 TB)
    Seagate
    PSU
    Intel i7 10th Generation
    Case
    HP
    Cooling
    HP/Intel?
    Mouse
    Logitech M705
    Keyboard
    Logitech Wave K350
    Internet Speed
    50 mbps
    Browser
    Firefox 90.2
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
    Other Info
    Headphone/Microphone Combo
    SuperSpeed USB Type-A (4 on front)
    HP 3-in-One Card Readr
    SuperSpeed USB Type-C
    DVD Writer

My Computers

System One System Two

  • OS
    Windows 11 Home
    Computer type
    Laptop
    Manufacturer/Model
    Acer Aspire 3 A315-23
    CPU
    AMD Athlon Silver 3050U
    Memory
    8GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Radeon Graphics
    Monitor(s) Displays
    laptop screen
    Screen Resolution
    1366x768 native resolution, up to 2560x1440 with Radeon Virtual Super Resolution
    Hard Drives
    1TB Samsung EVO 870 SSD
    Internet Speed
    50 Mbps
    Browser
    Edge, Firefox
    Antivirus
    Defender
    Other Info
    fully 'Windows 11 ready' laptop. Windows 10 C: partition migrated from my old unsupported 'main machine' then upgraded to 11. A test migration ran Insider builds for 2 months. When 11 was released on 5th October it was re-imaged back to 10 and was offered the upgrade in Windows Update on 20th October. Windows Update offered the 22H2 Feature Update on 20th September 2022. It got the 23H2 Feature Update on 4th November 2023 through Windows Update.

    My SYSTEM THREE is a Dell Latitude 5410, i7-10610U, 32GB RAM, 512GB ssd, supported device running Windows 11 Pro (and all my Hyper-V VMs).

    My SYSTEM FOUR is a 2-in-1 convertible Lenovo Yoga 11e 20DA, Celeron N2930, 4GB RAM, 256GB ssd. Unsupported device: currently running Win10 Pro, plus Win11 Pro RTM and Insider Beta as native boot vhdx.

    My SYSTEM FIVE is a Dell Latitude 3190 2-in-1, Pentium Silver N5030, 4GB RAM, 512GB NVMe ssd, supported device running Windows 11 Pro, plus the Insider Beta, Dev, and Canary builds as a native boot .vhdx.
  • Operating System
    Windows 11 Pro
    Computer type
    Laptop
    Manufacturer/Model
    Dell Lattitude E4310
    CPU
    Intel® Core™ i5-520M
    Motherboard
    0T6M8G
    Memory
    8GB
    Graphics card(s)
    (integrated graphics) Intel HD Graphics
    Screen Resolution
    1366x768
    Hard Drives
    500GB Crucial MX500 SSD
    Browser
    Firefox, Edge
    Antivirus
    Defender
    Other Info
    unsupported machine: Legacy bios, MBR, TPM 1.2, upgraded from W10 to W11 using W10/W11 hybrid install media workaround. In-place upgrade to 22H2 using ISO and a workaround. Feature Update to 23H2 by manually installing the Enablement Package.

    My SYSTEM THREE is a Dell Latitude 5410, i7-10610U, 32GB RAM, 512GB ssd, supported device running Windows 11 Pro (and all my Hyper-V VMs).

    My SYSTEM FOUR is a 2-in-1 convertible Lenovo Yoga 11e 20DA, Celeron N2930, 4GB RAM, 256GB ssd. Unsupported device: currently running Win10 Pro, plus Win11 Pro RTM and Insider Beta as native boot vhdx.

    My SYSTEM FIVE is a Dell Latitude 3190 2-in-1, Pentium Silver N5030, 4GB RAM, 512GB NVMe ssd, supported device running Windows 11 Pro, plus the Insider Beta, Dev, and Canary builds as a native boot .vhdx.
Good morning, Rod.

Problem is that most, if not all of them have Windows Home. Windows Home won't let us use Hyper-V which Macrium needs for ViBoot. Kind of a ring-around-the-rosies situation. If you don't got this, you can't use that! Grrrrrrrrrrr!

I know there's a way to install Hyper-V onto a Home system, but at this point, I need to give them the simplest tutorial possible.

Upgrading to Pro would be an option, but in light of the fact that we're mostly all on fixed income, well . . . ring-around-the-rosies
@Wynona, As of V8 MR has VBox support for ViBoot.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10 version 22H2 and W11 Dev.
    Computer type
    Laptop
    Manufacturer/Model
    HP
    CPU
    i7 7500U
    Motherboard
    HP
    Memory
    8GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVIDIA Geforce 940MX
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1080
    Hard Drives
    Internal 256GB Samsung SSD plus UB3/2 attached 500GB Samsung SSD, 256GB WD SSD, 3TB WD HDD, 2TB WD HDD. 1.5TB Samsung HDD, and 7GB Network storage
    Mouse
    Logitech M705
    Internet Speed
    200Mb/sec
    Browser
    Chrome, FF, Opera, Edgium.
    Antivirus
    MS Defender, Malwarebytes

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10 Pro + others in VHDs
    Computer type
    Laptop
    Manufacturer/Model
    ASUS Vivobook 14
    CPU
    I7
    Motherboard
    Yep, Laptop has one.
    Memory
    16 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Integrated Intel Iris XE
    Sound Card
    Realtek built in
    Monitor(s) Displays
    N/A
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1080
    Hard Drives
    1 TB Optane NVME SSD, 1 TB NVME SSD
    PSU
    Yep, got one
    Case
    Yep, got one
    Cooling
    Stella Artois
    Keyboard
    Built in
    Mouse
    Bluetooth , wired
    Internet Speed
    72 Mb/s :-(
    Browser
    Edge mostly
    Antivirus
    Defender
    Other Info
    TPM 2.0

My Computers

System One System Two

  • OS
    Windows 11 23H2 22631.2861
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Manufacturer/Model
    HP Envy TE01-1xxx
    CPU
    Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10700 CPU @ 2.90GHz 2.90 GHz
    Motherboard
    16.0GB Dual-Channel Unknown @ 1463MHz (21-21-21-47)
    Memory
    16384 MBytes
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel UHD Graphics 630
    Sound Card
    Realtek High Definition Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Monitor 1 - Acer 27" Monitor 2 - Acer 27"
    Screen Resolution
    1920 x 1080
    Hard Drives
    WDC PC SN530 SDBPNPZ-512G-1006 (SSD)
    Seagate ST1000DM003-1SB102
    Seagate BUP Slim SCSI Disk Device (SSD)
    PSU
    HP
    Case
    HP
    Cooling
    Standard
    Keyboard
    Logitech Wave K350
    Mouse
    Logitech M705
    Internet Speed
    500 mbps
    Browser
    Firefox
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
    Other Info
    That's all Folks!
  • Operating System
    Windows 11
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Manufacturer/Model
    HP
    CPU
    Intel Core i7 (10th gen) 10700
    Motherboard
    Intel
    Memory
    16 GB
    Graphics card(s)
    Intel UHD Graphics 630
    Sound Card
    Built-in
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Acer 27" & Samsung 24"
    Screen Resolution
    1920 x
    Hard Drives
    SSD (512 GB)
    HDD (1 TB)
    Seagate
    PSU
    Intel i7 10th Generation
    Case
    HP
    Cooling
    HP/Intel?
    Mouse
    Logitech M705
    Keyboard
    Logitech Wave K350
    Internet Speed
    50 mbps
    Browser
    Firefox 90.2
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
    Other Info
    Headphone/Microphone Combo
    SuperSpeed USB Type-A (4 on front)
    HP 3-in-One Card Readr
    SuperSpeed USB Type-C
    DVD Writer

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