September 14, 2011 6:30 AM

I've posted before about my intense live for Booting off a VHD (Virtual Hard Disk). It's lovely. Of course, once Hyper-V on the client happens, it will matter less, but for now, here I am, a guy with a perfectly good, working Windows 7 machine who wants to also run the Windows 8 Developer Preview.

I could do a few things to play with Windows 8. I could:

• Try a virtualization solution, but it might not work, I may not have the drivers I need and it won't be as shiny as running "on the metal."
• Sacrifice a machine I have lying around. I'll probably do that at some point, but I'd like to try it out on my actual hardware that I use all day long.
• Swap out my C: drive and use my main machine. I don't have a tool-less case, and I'm also very lazy, so, um, ya.
• Dual boot. Dual booting may feel ninja but it ALWAYS ends on tears. And sometimes blood.
• Boot on real hardware from a Virtual Hard Disk.

Booting off a VHD is my current preferred solution for trying crazy stuff because the only speed hit I'll take is on the virtualized hard drive. Everything else is real hardware. I do this all the time with presentation VHDs and one-off daily builds of stuff.

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