Installing Windows Embedded Standard (Windows 7 Embedded) in a VHD file

One of the new capabilities of Windows 7 Embedded is to boot from a VHD file. This is a great possibility which can help a lot in case of deploying updates, running different version, or deploying the system in general as it’s again a simple file copy&pasty procedure on NTFS.

You can even install Windows 7 Embedded directly into a VHD so you don’t need to transfer it to a VHD manually – also you don’t need BCDEDIT as the setup will take care of this.

Before you start you need an formatted NTFS volume where the VHD will be located.

Installation

• Boot the target device from the Runtime DVD
• When the setup screen appears pres Shift+F10 – this will open a command prompt
• Run diskpart.exe
• Run the following commands to create a 5GB VHD

create vdisk file=c:Win7Emb.vhd maximum=5120
select vdisk file=c:Win7Emb.vhd
attach vdisk
exit

• close the command prompt and run through your Windows 7 Embedded installation
• select the VHD harddisk at the target drive selection

 

Cloning

The cloning process with VHDs it quite easy:

• format a new hdd with NTFS
• copy the whole content of the target drive where the VHD is located to the new harddisk
  (make sure that you see all the system files – the bootmanager is hidden by default!)

  Example where C is the master drive and D is the new target drive:

robocopy C: D: /E

 

Imageupdates

If you have an update for your image you can easily copy the new VHD to the target harddisk, e.g.:

C:
  — Win7Emb.vhd   [Original Windows 7 Embedded]
  — Win7Emb_v2.vhd  [Updated Windows 7 Embedded Image]

Now you just need to install a new bootentry and set it as default.

bcdedit /copy {default} /d "Updated Windows 7 Embedded Image"
bcdedit /set {GUID} device vhd=[C:]Win7Emb_v2.vhd
bcdedit /set {GUID} osdevice vhd=[C:]Win7Emb_v2.vhd
bcdedit /default {GUID}

If something is wrong with the new image you can easily revert back.