windows 7 boot from vhd transfering vhd

[sted]

because a school im at have a program that dosent work on x64 win7 (which is what almost all pcs are) ive set up on a pc a vhd file with x86 windows 7 and installed the software in question (and hidden the real hdd) is there any way to quickly (relatively speaking as its a 40gb file) just dump the vhd file to other pcs (i assume i really should sysprep it but tbh it dosent need network access so im tempted to just disable nics) and edit the bcd to show it (again i assume if pc1 is different hardware to pc2 it may complain) or even a way of adding a vhd hdd to a pc with mdt

[SYNACK]

Did you look into the XP mode VM: Download Windows XP Mode this gives you a 32bit OS that can 'seamlessly' let you run old 32bit apps from inside Windows 7. I think it was @SimpleSi who was looking at this before and found the integration tools that could be installed into a standard OS to give you this 'seamless mode' which may work with your W7 image and allow it all to be included under the one UI.

[sted]

Did you look into the XP mode VM: Download Windows XP Mode this gives you a 32bit OS that can 'seamlessly' let you run old 32bit apps from inside Windows 7. I think it was @SimpleSi who was looking at this before and found the integration tools that could be installed into a standard OS to give you this 'seamless mode' which may work with your W7 image and allow it all to be included under the one UI.

 

ive used it before but from what i remember its not great with multiple users on a pc and not sure if/how shortcuts would work on a shared start menu thats on the server

[SYNACK]

No idea on those accounts, its just that booting into a whole seporate OS for one app seems a little extreme.

 

With regard to your method it should work assuming it has all the required drivers integrated inside the VHD. I did not even bother syspreping a VHD of 2008 R2 when I dumped it on a physical box as it had reasonably simple hardware.

 

I still think that VMing it is going to be a better solution unless it is a really seporate app in which case you could probably have it autologon and boot the app as the shell making that app more like an appliance.

 

The other thing you could look at depending on your infrastructure is TSApps from a 2008 32bit server for the users to remote in to the application from 64bit stations. Depending on your hardware and liscencing that could be easier in the long run.

[sted]

No idea on those accounts, its just that booting into a whole seporate OS for one app seems a little extreme.

 

With regard to your method it should work assuming it has all the required drivers integrated inside the VHD. I did not even bother syspreping a VHD of 2008 R2 when I dumped it on a physical box as it had reasonably simple hardware.

 

I still think that VMing it is going to be a better solution unless it is a really seporate app in which case you could probably have it autologon and boot the app as the shell making that app more like an appliance.

 

The other thing you could look at depending on your infrastructure is TSApps from a 2008 32bit server for the users to remote in to the application from 64bit stations. Depending on your hardware and liscencing that could be easier in the long run.

 

dosent seem to like ts already tried that lol and requires a cd in the drive to work

[SYNACK]

dosent seem to like ts already tried that lol and requires a cd in the drive to work

 

Integrated Damon tools image? Staff scratch, loose, snap CDs.

[sted]

Integrated Damon tools image? Staff scratch, loose, snap CDs.

 

the cds themselves do iso ok (prefer virtual clone drive) but the ts just diddnt like i think because 2008r1 dosent support audio devices as well as r2 but as r2 is x64 no help there lol. loose the cds and my problems gone lol. tried virtualbox and same as ts it diddnt like the microphone i suspect real time mic recording would be the killer for most vms

[SYNACK]

The VMs can probably handle it if the CPUs are up to it. I run a whole voicemail system on one and I was messing around with Photoshop on a laptop with it. It all depends on the hardware.

 

You could also VDI it, try looking at Windows thinclient version if you have a VL agreement, that should spin up in 512 to 750MB of RAM and can be configured to boot this app to shell. You could either VDI provision it from a hyper-V server or just boot the VMs with the virtual tools above. Those tools are better integrated into Windows 7 but will still run older full VMs without the integration tools fine, they will tie into the hardware acceleration easier than going with the old virtual PC versions and you should be able to make a shortcut to the location of the VHD as its native command will be to boot it. If it is set as the shell it should just boot up like a slightly slower application (quicker if it is an isolated Win Thiclient OS).