VBoot - Boot any Windows from VHD/VMDK/VDI/Raw

It also provides an instant snapshot and recovery machanism, so can be used as security tool, so I think it's useful to this community.

---------
VBoot 1.0 for Windows has been released. It allows you to natively boot Windows 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, Winodws 7 and 2008, 32- and 64-bit, any service packs and editions, from a virtual disk file in VHD, VMDK, VDI and Raw format.

(1) support installing Windows into a virtual disk file from ISO file or physical cdrom in a very straightforward way.

(2) support differencing disk files and snapshots.

(3) support one click snapshot and recovery

(4) support booting Windows PE based ISOs

(5) support immutable boot sessions where all system changes will be discarded after reboot

(6) support converting Windows 7 VHD to vbootable disks

more info and download can be found here:

http://www.vmlite.com/index.php/products/vboot

instructions can be found here:

http://www.vmlite.com/vboot/instructions.html

Attached is a screenshot that shows how easy to take a snapshot and perform a recovery:

 

Hi huisinro,

will like to have a look so thanks for the post.

 

This is very interesting indeed thanks.

 

This provides same fuctions as you would do on a virtual machine, taking snapshot, then all changes will be saved to a separate file. If you delete this differencing disk files, all changes are gone. If you merge the diffs to the base image, then you have all changes.

For the first time, it also provides a seamless way of installing Windows to a virtual disk file from an .iso file, the process is same as you would install the os to the real harddisk, except it's even faster. By the end, everything is inside the file, including Windows boot manager files, which are also loaded from the virtual disk file through vboot loader.

I think this should be more powerful than the shadow protection tools described in the forums.

 

Nice

thanks for this.

Panagiotis

 

Freeware? Needs internet to run (calls home)?

 

@ Pliskin
It's freeware and it requires registration.

 

Time-limited trial - expires on Feb 15, 2011

 

They make no mention of that,just that free registration is required,not good I'll give it a miss

 

Hey huisinro,

Would be nice if the instructions were available in PDF format for easy printing and saving.

Can Windows Upgrade disks be installed easily by providing the other OS .iso or will it access the DVD drive during install as normal?

Can I copy my existing .vdi and snapshots over to VBoot?

Is this going to become a purchasable product in the future or will it remain a free solution?

Is this an independent solution separate from VMLite?

 

Can this be installed from a live linux CD onto a clean HDD?

 

(1) we are incorporating Linux version to the Windows version, once done, will provide PDF docs. Thanks for the suggestions.

(2) Since you can even install Windows system itself from ISO files via vboot, there is no problem to install regular software, including updates, from ISO files. What you need to do is to mount the iso as virtual cdrom using "vbootctl mount" command.

(3) you can use existing vhd/vndk/vdi and snapshots, but if it's a guest vm, for xp/2003, you will need to do more on virtual-to-physical conversion (v2p), mostly, you need to install mass storage drivers. For Linux/Windows 7, you don't need to do much.

For Windows XP/2003/vista/7/2008, if you want to boot from a virtual disk stored inside a USB, you need to do a bit extra work. VMLite forums have more discussions on how to boot from USB.

Linux virtual disk is very easy to boot from USB, no extra work at all.

(4) yes, we will provide a paid version, and also considering a limited free version too. By the way, from next update of VBoot, the expiration date of Windows version will be Apr-15-2011, and Linux version never expires.

(5) VBoot is independent from VMLite. They just happen to use same virtual disk format.

(6) Linux has so many distributions, VBoot can boot any ISO files to the point that kernel is loaded, however, after that the kernel needs a way to read from the virtual cdrom. If at this point, you could mount the iso, the installation may continue. Otherwise, it will stuck.

For Linux, best way is to install it to a vm, then install VBoot driver, and boot it.