Bootable VHD in Windows 7 for Win 2008 R2 x64, SQL 2008, SPS 2010, VS2010, WF4

You can refer to my other post on this effort. Finally I was able to get a bootable VHD under Windows 7. I wanted to share what finally worked for me.

• With my base bootable image Windows 7 x64 Ultimate, only the Fixed VHD seems to work.
• The Fixed VHD must be on the local drive, meaning no external connected drives through USB, ESATA (Yes this is possible see my other post).
• So the above restriction put limit on my maximum size I could apply for my VHD (20GB)
• Here are some of my recordings of space requirements:

Software	Space Required
Windows 2008 R2 x64+IIS	6.7GB
VS.Net 2010 (C#,Web Dev, SPS Dev) Including all pre-requisites	3.3GB
SQL Server 2008	2GB
SPS 2010	2.3GB

• After all the components installed and ready to go with SPS CA created, I had only about 3.3 GB left.
• So I think if you are planning for this task, plan for your storage well in advance, I would say at least 25-40GB for the VHD if you can afford the space.
• When I created the VHD as fixed disk, the install and booting went well. Finally when everything started working, I felt that I been missing my productivity tools where were on my base Windows 7 install.
• So finally I am ended up going back to my VMware Workstation option, and here are couple of reasons.
• Microsoft VPC 2007 did not support x64 bit OS.
• VMWare Workstation 7 supported Windows 2008 x64 bit.