hi,

i am using vs 2005 r2 and have an image with 16 GB of size. 2 GB of this
size is still free in the image itself, the rest is used by os and my apps.

i now want to upgrade this image from w2k3 to w2k8, but this requires 8 gb
of free space. how to do this without mounting a separate disk (not a given
option here).

note that installing a new w2k8 from scratch is neither an option here.

thanks in advance, fritz
---
Fritz Theiss

Basically, use VHDMount and Robocopy as detailed here:

1. shut down the guest virtual machine
2. Create thru the Virtual Disk Wizard a new dynamically expanding disk with
a max size of 100 Gb => this creates Cbis.vhd with an initial size of a few
Kb.
3. close Virtual PC 2007
4. use VHDMount (installed it on my Vista machine from the Virtual Server
2005 SP1 installation) to issue the following commands
(if prompted to format a disk, don't do it, if X: or Y: drives don't get
created, don't worry)
vhdmount /m /f C.vhd X
vhdmount /m /f CBis.vhd Y
5. go to Disk Management (Computer, Manage, Disk Management) on the real
Vista machine
assign X: to the disk corresponding to C.vhd if it's not already done
format the disk corresponding to CBis.vhd. NTFS, quick formatting is OK
assign Y: to the disk corresponding to Cbis.vhd if it's not already done
6. Copy all the files from X: to Y:
robocopy X:\ Y:\ /E /COPYALL /R:5
Fix any remaining copy issues (for instance ACL not authorizing
administrators group to read)
7. go to Disk Management (Computer, Manage, Disk Management) on the real
Vista machine
Mark Y: partition as active
8. Unmount X: and Y:
vhdmount /u All
9. Change the virtual machine .vmc file (with notepad) and replace C.vhd by
Cbis.vhd
10. Restart virtual machine

Full Credit to Benjamin Guinebertière:
http://blogs.msdn.com/benjguin/default.aspx
--

Ryan Sokolowski
MVP - Windows Server - Clustering
MCSE, CCNA, CCDA, BCFP


"Fritz Theiss" <fritz@anywhere.com> wrote in message
newsA428E96-A490-4490-A447-1E445DD16832@microsoft.com...
> hi,
>
> i am using vs 2005 r2 and have an image with 16 GB of size. 2 GB of this
> size is still free in the image itself, the rest is used by os and my
> apps.
>
> i now want to upgrade this image from w2k3 to w2k8, but this requires 8 gb
> of free space. how to do this without mounting a separate disk (not a
> given option here).
>
> note that installing a new w2k8 from scratch is neither an option here.
>
> thanks in advance, fritz
> ---
> Fritz Theiss