Virtualization Archives

Delete shadow copies to compact VHDs and AVHDs

December 7, 2010 Dec 7, 2010 12/7/10

Heath Stewart

For a few years my primary development machine has actually been a VM with source located on a physical hard drive attached to the VM. This helps reduce latency compared to a differencing disk (AVHD) which may need to expand to accommodate additional data (common when building). It’s also easier to maintain than multiple boot entries ...

Testing for components that install under TARGETDIR

February 26, 2010 Feb 26, 2010 02/26/10

Heath Stewart

A while back I explained how Windows Installer sets the TARGETDIR property to the root of the fixed drive with the most free space available. The problem is that even an attached USB external drive can appear as a fixed drive, and these may be later detached. If components are installed to that drive and the drive is detached, repairing, ...

Booting Windows to a Differencing Virtual Hard Disk

October 13, 2009 Oct 13, 2009 10/13/09

Heath Stewart

Testing software can be fun and rewarding. You get to see new, upcoming features and provide valuable feedback to the developer. But as with most pre-release software, we recommend that you don’t install it on production machines. You could dedicate extra machines for testing, or even test in a virtual machine. Virtual machines are great for...

Visual Studio Setup