As its name indicates, VHD Resizer is a tool that allows you to resize a VHD (Virtual Hard Disk). VHD is Microsoft’s format for virtual disks, and is used by Virtual PC, Virtual Server, and Hyper-V. VHD Resizer can be used to enlarge or shrink virtual disks of all three virtualization solutions. Windows Vista and Windows 7’s system backup tools also use this format. However, it doesn’t make much sense to enlarge a backup image. There are also third party virtualization tools, such as VirtualBox, that support the VHD format.

The most common problem with VHDs occurs when the disk of a virtual server is full. The nice thing about virtual disks is that they are quite easy to expand. I can’t help but wonder why Microsoft’s virtualization solutions haven’t integrated this option. In theory, this should be possible even while the server is running. After all, it is no problem to defragment the disk of a running server, so why shouldn’t it be possible to resize an online VHD?

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Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 SP1 and Sun xVM VirtualBox are both free hardware virtualization tools that can be used for testing purposes. If you plan to try Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2, you should consider using a virtualization tool. Testing in a virtual environment has many advantages even if you have PCs for testing purposes. I guess most Windows admins tend to use Virtual PC simply because it is from Microsoft. However, VirtualBox is by the far the better tool, which is the topic of this article. VMware Workstation is certainly an even better choice if you are willing to spend $189.00. But for occasional testers, VirtualBox is sufficient.

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I already reviewed Virtual PC 2007 beta sometime ago. My overall impression was not so positive at that time. Virtual PC 2007 RTM is available for download now. Today, I installed it again on a Vista machine.

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Update: Review of Virtual PC 2007 RTM
You’ve probably heard already that the beta version of Virtual PC 2007 is available at Microsoft Connect. Today, I tested Microsoft’s latest virtualization tool. The good news: The test was quite fast. The bad news is… well, read my review…

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You can now download Virtual PC 2004 for free. I wonder how VMware will react to this. VMware Workstation certainly is a better product. However, I think that for many Virtual PC is sufficient.

VMware Virtual Machine Importer allows you to import virtual machines from Microsoft Virtual PC and Virtual Server. The 2.0 beta supports the latest versions of Microsoft’s virtual machines format. You can also import from Symantec’s LiveStat and Ghost 9. Provided you use one of this Symantec tools, Virtual Machine Importer is an alternative to VMware P2V Assistant, as you can use it to transfer physical installations into virtual machines. Importer 2.0 also supports the latest VMware formats, especially ESX Server 3.0 Beta 2. VMware Virtual Machine Importer 2.0 Beta is now available for download. Also check out their press release.