Virtual Varia : VIIrtualization

WIM2VHD: 1000 downloads and counting!

mikekol — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 03:17:51 GMT

Every now and then, I like to visit the WIM2VHD website and see how many people have downloaded it. Aside from the ego boost, it’s a nice little figure to pass on to my management so they can see that this project was worth the time that I’ve spent on it. But yeah, it’s mostly the ego boost :)

Last night, I decided to check the download count before I went to bed, and I saw something that made me very, very happy: at around 10:30 PM PDT last night, there were about 1030 downloads.

That’s right – over 1000 downloads in about 45 days. Now, when compared to other projects – like Hyper-V – 1000 downloads in a month and a half is not earth shattering. But Hyper-V had marketing behind it. People knew that Hyper-V was coming – it was demoed at conferences and by news outlets. WIM2VHD was a surprise (and I hope it was a pleasant one).

It’s very humbling to know that something I’ve been working on is useful to you, and is (hopefully) helping you use Windows and virtualization more efficiently.

So, to all of the people out there who have downloaded and used WIM2VHD; to all of the people who have blogged about it; tweeted about it, or told co-workers about it; and to everyone who joined the “Fans of WIM2VHD” group on Facebook:

Thank you!

So, seeing how many people have downloaded WIM2VHD – How are you guys using it? Are you just playing around with it, or has it actually helped you be more productive? I’d love to know, so if you don’t mind sharing your stories and experiences please leave a comment letting me know.

Again, thank you all very, very much.

Announcing the Windows® Image to Virtual Hard Disk Converter (WIM2VHD)

mikekol — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 23:29:00 GMT

It was my New Years Resolution that I’d do an average of 2 blog posts per week this year. So far, I haven’t been doing a very good job of that, but I think I have a good excuse. I’ve been very busy with preparing to release a new tool, and now, I can finally announce it.

Fine citizens of the Virtualization Nation: I present to you the Windows® Image to Virtual Hard Disk Converter, or WIM2VHD as I like to call it.

WIM2VHD is a tool that will create a bootable VHD from a specified Windows 7 or 2008 R2 WIM image (like the INSTALL.WIM file that ships on the installation DVDs) without having to run Windows Setup. That means that you can a Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 virtual machine up and running much, much faster.

You can use these VHDs in Virtual PC, Virtual Server, Hyper-V, and … some other things, too. We’ll talk more about that later.

You can get WIM2VHD here.
(The release candidate has been released, too...)

I’ve done my best at creating some good documentation for WIM2VHD, which is available from the link above. Please make sure that you read the docs. If you have any questions, feel free to start a discussion thread at the WIM2VHD site.

Here’s a video I made introducing WIM2VHD, and showing it in action. More are one the way.

Please be aware, however, that while the underlying process of creating the VHDs is supported by Microsoft, WIM2VHD is not.

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VIIrtualization: I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but the Windows 7 Beta is out

mikekol — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 23:14:00 GMT

You know… just in case you haven’t heard it. I’m sure there aren’t a lot of people talking about it or anything, so you might have missed it. (There’s some good information in that link – I highly advise you to click on it if you plan on getting the beta.)

The beta is currently available to MSDN and TechNet subscribers, but it will be available to the public at some point on 1/9. That includes both the client and the server versions, which means that not only will you be able to play with all of the great work that’s been done in Windows 7 client, but you can also kick the tires on the next version of Hyper-V, which is included with Windows 7 Server (Windows Server 2008 R2).

My team and I have been working super hard on Hyper-V in R2, and we’re really happy to be able to talk about it now. I’ll have more about the new Hyper-V later on, but right now I’ve got some posts lined up that do what this blog was originally started for – to tell you how to run a shiny new beta of Windows in a VM.

I’ll start with Hyper-V, and then move on to Virtual PC and Virtual Server.

These posts are all about VIIrtualization (see what I did there?).

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Virtual Varia : VIIrtualization

WIM2VHD: 1000 downloads and counting!

More WIM2VHD videos on the way… but how many?

Announcing the Windows® Image to Virtual Hard Disk Converter (WIM2VHD)

VIIrtualization: I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but the Windows 7 Beta is out