Back in the days for high schools when I had way more time, I was toying around with my computer and with a couple of VMs and tools like EasyBCD and found the Windows bootloader is capable of booting from hard drives images.
Later I’ve found Microsoft’s OEM documentation of explaining how it works here:
Boot to a virtual hard disk: Add a VHDX or VHD to the boot menu
Microsoft’s guide is tailored to OEMs setting this up from Windows PE and is disjointed. So I thought I’d write things
So I thought I’d write down the commands I’m using to make this happen for myself, to set a streaming setup together.
<aside>
⚠️ diskpart is quite dangerous to use and can wipe your disk if you’re not careful. Use the list to make sure you’re operating on the right disk or volume.
</aside>
Open a terminal as an administrator (Win X → Terminal (Admin)) and run diskpart.
In diskpart, run the following to create a VHDX file.
create vdisk file="C:\\Multiboot\\Stream.vhdx" type=expandable maximum=180000
We then need to format the disk.
attach vdisk
create partition primary
format fs=ntfs label="Stream" quick
assign letter=v
You can now exit from diskpart.
Next up grab a Windows 11 ISO (or any other ISO) and mount it on your system. Once the image is mounted, you can now apply the image to the virtual hard drive.
First check which edition you’d like to install with the following command and take note of the index numbers: