Microsoft has added native vhd (that’s virtual hard disk) support in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. This basically allows a user to create a virtual hard disk that uses space of one of the physical hard disks but displays with its own drive letter. You can read up on virtual hard drives in Windows 7 by reading Robert’s two in depths articles How to Create and Configure a VHD in Windows 7 and How to Attach/Detach VHDs in Windows 7. One interesting application for VHDs in Windows 7 is the ability to use them to store a different operating system which can then be booted into as if it were normally installed on a separate partition.
If you read Robert’s article about attaching and detaching VHDs you might have noticed that it requires some menu fiddling to do so. The user needs to go into Computer Management, click on Disk Management under Storage and select Attach VHD (or Detach) from there. It is not a problem if this is a once-a-lifetime operation but users who work regularly with different VHD images might prefer a faster solution.
That’s where VHD Attach comes into play. The software program adds options to attach and detach vhd images to the right-click context menu in Windows Explorer. All that it takes to attach a vhd is therefor to right-click it in Windows Explorer and select the attach option. The same is true for detaching vhd images which can be done by right-clicking the mounted vhd image in My Computer.
VHD Attach is a free software program for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. It can be downloaded directly from the developer’s website. (via Download Squad)
