Hello,

Would someone please tell me if there is any documentation available for using VhdResizer?  I'm brand new to the VM world and want to make sure that I'm using this utility correctly. It seems I didn't allocate enough space for the 1st and only VM I set-up on my Windows 2003 server.

My objective was to set-up the VM with WinXP Pro to create a separate development environment for a new web client. So far, I only have SQL Server 2k installed, but I also need to install Visual Studio 2005 and that install is telling me that I don't have enough hard drive space. When I initially set up the VM, I only allocated 4 GB to the VM total I then loaded the win XP Pro OS and SQL Server 2k. The OS install took a real long time, which I understand from reading other posts, is typical.

Instead of starting over and recreating a new VM, I thought I would go the route of expanding the existing hard disk. Here's a screenshot of my VM settings:

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Jeff

Sorry but no documentation, it's mostly my fault, I generally try to stay away from documentation and the developers well... they develop things. :) I've found in the past when we try to keep up with the development team on documentation we spend so much time rewriting to keep up with their changes that we never actually release a doc. But...

Judging by your screen shot it appears that you have a 16GB Dynamic VHD there so you should have plenty of space to install Visual Studio. The way Microsoft Virtual PC works is in either fixed (better performance) or dynamic (default) Virtual Hard Disks. If you look at the file you will mostly likely see a 4-5 GB file at this time because that is the actual space it is taking up on disk but the virtual machine will grow to 16GB if needed. Once you get to 16 you may run into a real cap but you will want a new VM by then.

Have you tried installing visual studio yet? You may be surprised to see it work. Performance will still be a dog, I would give it as much more RAM as you have available. SQL in a VM will try to gobble everything up, unless explicitly tell it otherwise. Make sure your additions are installed and remember for testing you have Undo disks available to you if you enable them.

Hello Jeff and All,

I'm also a newb to Virtualization and have successfully used VHDResizer and am happy to recount my experience.  To begin with I grabbed an existing Virtual PC folder and copied the whole thing, just to cover my butt and have a backup if things went terribly wrong. 

Then I ran the app and got started resizing a MS Server03 image with SQL05 installed so I could have a test enviro for some DB mods.  I ran out of space restoring the DB (you need 1.5x the file size of the DB btw ... don't learn this the hard way),

First, select the "Source VHD to Resize" by hitting the open button and browse the file system until you find your VHD file you would like to resize.  Next specify the "Destination VHD" by browsing the file system to your destination and append the file name at the end of your path.     

On a side note, there's an important extra step to take here.  Name your destination file (the resized one) exactly the same as your original, but add a "2" or somethign on there to designate a difference.  This will help prevent a future conflict when you run the .vmc file, and I'll you'll see why in a minute. 

Then select the type from the "Type" drop down area.  You have the option of using a fixed or dynamic virtual hard disk.  Fixed will always be a certain size, dynamic will expand until it reaches the limit you specify.

 Next specify the "New Size" of the vhd using GB or MB, and make sure the "New Size" is the total HD size you are looking for.

Hit the "resize" button and watch it crank (remember formatting & partitioning HDs, something similar is going on here).  When the app finishes, delete your original file (previously your target file) and then use that files name for the new, resized file.  What this does is prevent an error message when you click on the .VMC file to start up the virtual PC.  The program will see a conflict if you do not do this and let you know another virtual image with the same name exists in the same directory etc....

Ok so we have our new, resized .vhd and then we can double click the .vmc file and viola, you should be booting into your virtual PC.  Scope out your drive size, it should be bigger! 

I did not receive any errors, found the interface intuitive, and was very pleased with this program.  Special thanks to the creators, hats off.  This saved me much grief.