I am contemplating creating a Windows 10 22H2 OS install on a virtual disk within my main Windows 11 24H2 OS install using the below process.

My hope is to use the Windows 10 install for dedicated use, such as mostly offline DAW, and Windows 11 as my daily driver.

Anybody else do this using a virtual disk at all? And I'd creating a backup image of the entire main drive with the main OS (Windows 11), would that in effect also be a backup of the secondary OS and BSD boot manager and so on too I presume?

 

Last edited: Jan 25, 2025 at 2:54 PM

When backing up, you only need to select to back up the entire Windows C:/ hard drive. That is, a 1:1 copy of the entire hard drive.
In an emergency, use your emergency recovery CD or DVD to restore the entire C:/ hard drive.

Which backup program do you use? You should check with your backup manufacturer to see if they support it.

What advantages do you expect from Virtual Windows 10 in Windows 11?
In principle, the more you do, the more unstable your system becomes.
If you back it up, that doesn't mean you can restore it.

 

It seems you posted a wrong link and you probably mean Virtual OS? Like install VirtualBox and run a virtual system?

Virtual systems are not good for making music, but are ideal for browsing without worrying about getting infected with a virus/worm/rootkit...

Long time ago (15y?) I used to run Windows XP for music, video, graphics, games... and have a virtual Linux in VirtualBox for browsing. That's a really nice combination for those who don't want to make music with Linux and browse safely.

About 10y ago I decided to start using Linux for everything, but installed Windows 7 as a virtual OS for running some Windows programs and figured it's unusable for music as you can't run ASIO drivers in a virtual OS, so I made a dual boot system and used both for a few years.

Nowadays I have two computers running both Windows and Linux, but I stick to Linux most of the time. Having a dual boot is the best option for making music with both OSes, but virtual OS works nicely for browsing, testing programs and plugins, and doing unsafe things.

 

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I did indeed link the wrong video, but corrected now. It's not a virtual OS in something like VirtualBox or VMware, but rather an actual OS on a virtual disk (Windows can create virtual disks, that is similar to a new partition but seen and recognised as a separate disk drive).

The correct video should explain how you can set up a dynamic virtual disk and install another OS on it.

 

The abbreviation VHD stands for "Virtual Hard Disk" and is the name for a virtual hard disk that, since Windows 7, can be integrated directly into the operating system as a drive with its own drive letter. VHDs function similarly to real hard disks, but all data stored on them is stored in a single large container file.

The biggest advantage of virtualized hard disks: The drive is decoupled from the computer hardware. In this way, a VHD file can be used on different desktop computers or notebooks, for example, and can be easily moved and backed up, and added or removed without changing the hardware. Windows 7, 8.1, 10 and 11 can also be started directly from a VHD file, which offers numerous practical uses.

Backup: To back up your data, simply copy the relevant VHD file, for example to an external hard drive.

 

I do use virtual disk images, though not VHD on Windows and not as main OS disks. The biggest thing to be aware of is the performance hit, and for OS usage that probably would be a bit too much.

Maybe fish out some benchmarks before going forwards with this?

 

Useful to know. Where are the performance hits? Is it the computer performance (CPU and RAM) or the drive performance (NVMe PCIe4 in my case)?

 

Ironically I find virtual computers to be more stable than hardware. I use Hyper-v on my daily computer to run software that does internet based tasks such as downloads etc... which has a VPN always on. It runs like a normal computer, and I don't have any issues for general computery stuff like emails and browsing. Speed is entirely dependent on running on a fast HD - it must be a SSD by minimum, but I am using a 2TB NVME. The VM itself and its storage need to be on the NVME.

Give it a try. As long as you have Windows Pro you have everything you need to get started. Go in to the old Control Panel and select Programs - here you will see an option to turn on and off windows features. Turn on both Hyper V options. You might be prompted to go into your Bios to update a couple of settings for your CPU to enable virtulization.

Using a VM for anything that has critical timing such as video or music production is best done on the non virtualised PC.
To back up a VM you just need to copy the virtual hard drive file to your backup location.

 

VHD is pretty interesting and useful stuff. I don't think there should be any performance problems as it's just a separate file system within a file system, and especially on NVMe or SSD. Yeah, dual booting W11 and W10 seems like a good idea with this in mind. Having a kind of backup operating system is always usueful.

 

Depends on the filesystem, but mostly disk performance unless it's possible somehow to match & overlay the FS blocks. So average case scenario would be twice the memory cache hit, twice the journal writes, possibly double the seek time. For "real" use cases I'd vastly prefer raw disks that incur none of these penalties, but then you'd lose the convenience. A quick web search says that aligning the blocks is doable on HyperV/Windows Server: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/w...ng/role/hyper-v-server/storage-io-performance

But again, I've not done (or even seen) real benchmarks for these so take these with a grain of salt.

 

VHDX works terrifically, but I would reverse your intended method in that I would run the most intensive tasks closest to the metal, and your simple web-browsing/Office tasks on the VHDX.

I'm sure you're trying to take the easiest and most direct route, however, and so you probably will not do so.

 

You are right. I've only just done a new install though, so could reverse things theoretically.

I am looking to move to using Ghost Spectre stripped down Windows OS installs too, and so upgrading isn't necessarily as straightforward as regular Microsoft vanilla ISO installs.

My main issue with putting Windows 10 as the main install and Windows 11 on the VHD is that support for Windows 10 will end this year, and then inevitably devices and software will begin dropping support for it too, meaning my main OS will be out of support and may not have a straightforward upgrade path. However, I guess át that Point i could install a fresh Windows 11 if need be and then restore the VHD backup to still run separate OS' for different purposes.

Is gaming possible on the VHD installs, if I set up a Windows 10 install on a VHD to use specifically for gaming, retaining my main install for my DAW work?

 

Why wouldn't gaming be possible? Or audio work even? It's just a VHD file system, not a Virtual OS. The difference in performance and usefulness is huge. But Virtual OS is trading performance for safety. VHD OS is just like any other OS. Pretty neat feature.

To be completely honest, I was wondering if it was even possible to have W10/W11 dual boot on a same disk and wasn't too familiar with VHD. Now I know.

How I dual boot different OSes, and the "cleanest way" is different disks, with a BIOS boot option. If you're worried about any performance penalties, just install W10 on one disk, and W11 on another, then choose with BIOS boot option which one to boot.

 

Last edited: Jan 25, 2025 at 8:04 PM

I've messed around with this and came across this info:

Disk2vhd
Copyright © 2009-2013 Mark Russinovich
Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com
Note: Do not attach VHDs on the same system on which you created them if you plan on booting from them. If you do so, Windows will assign the VHD a new disk signature to avoid a collision with the signature of the VHD's source disk. Windows references disks in the boot configuration database (BCD) by disk signature, so when that happens Windows booted in a VM will fail to locate the boot disk.

my VHDx took a LONG time to boot (on a different laptop)... It did find the hardware just fine... It ran slowly compared to the original (which is what you would expect)... You should create a VHDx rather than a simple VHD, the VHDx allows for larger size and more modern options... also, it took a few tries to find software that would create a bootable VHDx, many software create the file but it won't boot for whatever reasons... successful software was R-DriveImage and O&O DiskImage

good luck

 

This is not booting in a VM though?!

I use R-Drive Image to create my image backups already. However, have you watched the video in the OP above? Seems to cover a lot of the difficulties you cite about creating a bootable VHDx (and he specifically advises using VHDx due to it dynamically using up disk space, so even if you assign 500GB, it will actually only take whatever it's current size is, e.g. sub-20GB with a vanilla Windows 10 install). He also just installs using a Ventoy bootable USB (should be the same with Rufus I imagine, which is what I tend to use), and then shows how to edit the BCD file to allow easy dual boot.

 

THIS..

 

a VM has been the way I usually test my Ventoy drive, but not always... I don't want to risk screwing with my BCD because it is scary to me ;) ... because of this, I do not test copies of a system on the same system the VHD is made from, whether its made from my "real" system or in a VM... (I have no first hand knowledge/experience of disk signatures actually causing damage/confusion to the BCD, just being overly cautious...)

Yes, I too, am playing with Ventoy and test boot my system VHDx copies on other machines other than what they were made on... (because of my reason above)... I didn't really create a system VHDx copy for backup purposes, more to run in the event of a major system demise... I don't really expect the VHDx copy to run anywhere near a regular installation... I create "normal" backups of windows and keep them regularly updated, too...