Microsoft Vista CompletePC Backup will use Virtual Server virtual disk format

Posted by virtualization.info Staff   |   Saturday, June 24th, 2006   |  

At WinHEC 2006 Microsoft presented in details its new operating systems, Windows Vista and codename Longhorn, backup capabilities.
A new feature called CompletePC Backup will be able to produce a block level image of the whole machine while it’s running, thanks to the Volume Shadow Service (VSS), and restore it from bare metal, thanks to the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE), even on different hardware.

The most interesting news for virtualization administrators is that the backup format used is .vhd, the virtual disk format used by Virtual PC and Virtual Server.
This should mean, even if Microsoft didn’t state it clearly, that anyone will be able to backup a running Vista or Longhorn and restore it inside a virtual machine. Which is a way to do physical to virtual (P2V) migration.

The idea of using backup capabilities for P2V tasks isn’t new: few months ago Acronis launched last version of its flagship product, TrueImage, with a new feature called Universal Restore, capable of modifying on the fly the HAL and other drivers needed by operating system during restore on virtual hardware.

Look at the WinHEC 2006 presentation Backup And Restore In Windows Vista And Windows Server Longhorn.



blog comments powered by Disqus


virtualization.info Newest articles
Release: Oracle VM VirtualBox 4.1.8.

December 20th, 2011

Oracle has released version 4.1.8 of its virtualization platform VM VirtualBox. This version which can be considered a maintenance release can be installed on top of any VM VirtualBox 4.1.x…

Release: VKernel vOperations Suite 4.5

December 20th, 2011

VKernel, recently acquired by Quest Software has released version 4.5. of its vOperations Suite (vOps). vOperations is a suite of products providing Performance Analysis, Capacity Management, Resource Optimization, Reporting and…

Release: Teradici PCoIP client firmware 3.5.0

December 7th, 2011

Teradici is the developer of the PC-over-IP (PCoIP) remote desktop protocol, which is leveraged in software (by VMware view) and provided with Teradici hardware solutions which are OEM’ed by several…

Paper: Windows 2008 R2 Optimization Guide For Desktop Virtualization with XenApp 6 / 6.5

December 7th, 2011

Citrix has released a whitepaper titled:"Windows 2008 R2 Optimization Guide For Desktop Virtualization with XenApp 6 / 6.5", the paper which contains 23 pages outlines optimization for XenApp 6 and…

Release: Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 6.5

December 6th, 2011

In November Microsoft released a public beta of the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit (MAP) version 6.5. Today Microsoft announced its release, which is the follow-up of version 6.0 which…

Release: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.2

December 6th, 2011

Open source vendor Red Hat has released version 6.2 of its Linux distribution, Red Hat Enterprise Linux. This version is the follow-up of version 6.1 which was released in May…

Release: Linux Integration Services for Microsoft Hyper-V 3.2

December 6th, 2011

Microsoft has released version 3.2 of the Linux Integration Services for its hypervisor Hyper-V. This version is the follow-up of version 3.1 which was released in July this year.
The…

Login Virtual Session Indexer 3.5 is now available

November 29th, 2011

Since its first official release beginning 2009, the Virtual Session Indexer(VSI) has gained popularity as an independent benchmarking tool. One of the projects using the VSI tool is Project Virtual…

Release: VMware Fusion 4.1 – UPDATED

November 21st, 2011

VMware has released version 4.1 of its desktop virtualization platform for Apple Mac: Fusion. This release is considered an minor upgrade for version 4.0 which was released in September this…

Release: VMware Workstation 8.0.1/Player 4.0.1

November 21st, 2011

In September VMware released a new major version of its virtualization platform Workstation 8.0 and in October it released Player 4.0. Now VMware released an update for its virtualization platform…

Release: VMware ThinApp 4.7

November 17th, 2011

VMware has released version 4.7 of of its application virtualization solution ThinApp. This version includes the ability to use ThinApp packages in combination with its Software as a Service (SaaS)…

Quest acquires VKernel

November 17th, 2011

VKernel, provider of performance and capacity management products, has announced its acquisition by Quest Software. VKernel will operate as a independent subsidiary of Quest.
VKernel entered the virtualization market in…

Release: Lanamark Suite 2012

November 16th, 2011

Lanamark has released a new version of its Capacity Planning platform Suite, this version is the follow up of version 2010 which was released in March last year.
Suite 2012…

Release: Oracle Solaris 11

November 15th, 2011

In November last year, started releasing Solaris 11 Express, the development version eventually leading to the release of Oracle Solaris 11 which was released last week. Solaris is one of…

 
Monthly Archive