I am migrating a system from Vista to W8.1 and would like to be able to still boot Vista in a virtual environment in emergencies. I also have other legacy systems where I would like to retire the hardware but retain the OS for the occasional boot in a virtual environment. I would also like to be able to boot a pVHD backup in a virtual environment to check it out without wiping and restoring the original system. Does Paragon provide a free tool for this? If not, which is the most cost effective option? Google is confusing because it refers to a free version but I can't find a current release. Also, a number of different Paragon products seem to offer this feature. Cheers LGC
Backup & Recovery 2014 Free: http://www.paragon-software.com/home/br-free/index.html You could check the virtual capabilities of Hard Disk Manager Suite and Pro, to see if they suit your needs. Or, if you prefer a certain virtual environment (Hyper-V, VMware, VirtualBox), you could check if these programs support it for the operations you want to perform. You can compare products here: http://www.paragon-software.com/features_custom.html?p1=BRH14&p2=HDM14Pro. But to evaluate the real capabilities of a program, I think the best route is to download the trial version and try it.