Native boot allows VHDs to run on a computer without a VM or hypervisor. Native boot is supported in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

Note   Only LTI supports deployment to VHDs with native boot.

Native VHD boot has the following dependencies:

·     The local disk must have at least two partitions: a system partition that contains the Windows 7 boot environment files and Boot Configuration Data (BCD) store and a partition to store the VHD file.

·     The local disk partition that contains the VHD file must have enough free disk space for expanding a dynamic VHD to its maximum size and for the page file created when booting the VHD. The page file is created outside of the VHD file, unlike in a VM, where the page file is contained inside the VHD.

You can create LTI task sequences based on the following LTI task sequence templates to deploy to VHDs with native boot:

·     Deploy to VHD Client Task Sequence. Select this LTI task sequence template to deploy Windows 7 in a VHD with native boot.

·     Deploy to VHD Server Task Sequence. Select this LTI task sequence template to deploy Windows 7 in a VHD with native boot.

These tasks sequences contain the following task sequence steps, which are used to perform deployment to VHDs:

·     Create VHD Disk. The step creates the VHD file after the physical partition has been created and formatted. For more information about this task sequence step, see Configure the Create VHD Disk Task Sequence Step Type.

·     Format and Partition VHD. This step formats the .vhd file and is built using the Format and Partition Disk task sequence step type. For more information about task sequence step type, see Configure Disk Preparation Task Sequence Steps.

·     Clear OSDDiskIndexVariable. This step clears the OSDDiskIndexVariable task sequence variable that was set during the Create VHD Disk task sequence step. Clearing the OSDDiskIndexVariable task sequence variable allows other disks to be partitioned and formatted as a part of the task sequence.

For more information about VHDs with native boot, see Understanding Virtual Hard Disks with Native Boot.

Related Topics

Preparing Disks on Target Computers