Welcome to part 20 in a series of posts which describe how to create a Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS 2007) Virtual PC image for demos and development work. Last time, we looked at how to optimize our MOSS 2007 VPC image. This time, we’ll look at how to use Virtual PC’s differencing disks feature, which allows us to effectively “lock down” our new VPC image and use it as a base for creating multiple virtual machines for demos and development work, while conserving hard disk space at the same time.
Part 20: Creating a Virtual PC Differencing Disk
Launch Windows Explorer, locate and select the Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) file for your virtual machine we’ve been building, then select File > Properties:
Under the General tab of the Properties dialog box, select the Read-only attribute checkbox, then click the OK button:
In the Virtual PC Console, select File > Virtual Disk Wizard:
In the Welcome to the Virtual Disk Wizard dialog box, click the Next button:
In the Disk Options dialog box, select the Create a new virtual disk option, then click the Next button:
In the Virtual Disk Type dialog box, select the virtual hard disk option, then click the Next button:
In the Virtual Hard Disk Location dialog box, create a name for the new virtual hard disk file (VPC02 MOSS 2007 DIFF 01.vhd, in this case) and click the Browse button to locate a folder on your hard drive to store the new file, then click the Next button:
In the Virtual Hard Disk Options dialog box, select the Differencing option, then click the Next button:
In the Differencing Virtual Hard Disk dialog box, click the Browse button to locate the “parent” Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) file that we’ve been building (VPC02 MOSS SETUP DEMO, in this case), then click the Next button:
In the Completing the Virtual Disk Wizard dialog box, click the Finish button:
An alert message should be displayed, stating that the new virtual disk was created successfully; click the Close button:
In the Virtual PC Console, select File > New Virtual Machine Wizard:
In the Welcome to the New Virtual Machine Wizard dialog box, click the Next button:
In the Options dialog box, select the Create a virtual machine option, then click the Next button:
In the Virtual Machine Name and Location dialog box, create a name for the new virtual machine file (VPC02 MOSS 2007 DIFF 01.vmc, in this case) and click the Browse button to locate a folder on your hard drive to store the new file, then click the Next button:
In the Operating System dialog box, select Windows Server 2003 from the drop-down list, then click the Next button:
In the Memory dialog box, select the Adjust the RAM option, then set a value which is at least half of the physical memory on your host machine (1000 MB, in this case), then click the Next button:
In the Virtual Hard Disk Options dialog box, select the existing virtual hard disk option, then click the Next button:
In the Virtual Hard Disk Location dialog box, click the Browse button to locate the new Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) differencing disk file that we created (VPC02 MOSS 2007 DIFF 01.vhd, in this case), then click the Next button:
In the Completing the New Virtual Machine Wizard dialog box, click the Finish button:
The new virtual machine should be listed in the Virtual PC Console (VPC02 MOSS 2007 DIFF 01, in this case):
To avoid running the “parent” virtual machine and accidentally modifying it, select the virtual machine from the Virtual PC Console (VPC02 MOSS SETUP DEMO, in this case), then click the Remove button:
A Do you want to remove this virtual machine alert message should be displayed; click the Yes button:
You should now have a protected MOSS 2007 Virtual PC base image, as well as a differenced disk which can be used for demos and development. You can use this procedure for creating multiple differencing disks which build upon the same parent MOSS 2007 virtual machine that we’ve built.
We’ve finally reached the end of this series of posts which describe how to get up and running with a MOSS 2007 Virtual PC image (phew!). This isn’t the last that you will be hearing from me, though; stay tuned for further posts which describe how to use some of the interesting new features of MOSS 2007.
Enjoy!