Creating a Differencing Disk For CRM VPC Images

by Danny Varghese 01.02.09

Intro

Ever since I started learning about and developing for Microsoft CRM, I've used VPC (virtual pc) images to develop and test customizations, workflows, security roles, etc. Often times I would have to copy the virtual hard drive multiple times for multiple clients.

Differencing disks allow you to create a new disk off of a parent disk, but going forward, all changes made to that disk are saved to the new disk. This will allow you to have multiple virtual machines setup, but only using one parent virtual hard drive.

Steps To Create Differencing Disk

1. Create Virtual Hard using the wizard via the Virtual PC Console

1. Click Next | Create New Virtual Disk | A Virtual Hard Disk.
2. Choose a location for where you want this to be stored.
3. Choose the Differencing Disk option.
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  1. Select the parent virtual hard drive | Click Finish
  2. Next to create a virtual machine use the virtual machine wizard

  

  1. Click Next | Create Virtual Machine | Next
  2. Browse to a location to save the virtual machine
  3. Set the operating system | Set the memory required
  4. Select an existing virtual hard disk | Next
  5. Browse and select the virtual hard disk created in steps (1) - (5).
  6. Click Finish

  You have now created a differencing disk!