Virtual Hard Disks (VHDs) have many advantages over regular partitions, and the best thing about them is that they are easy to back up, restore, and even delete if necessary. Since VHDs are popular with IT professionals and other savvy users, Windows has made it so that you can easily create and manage VHDs using native tools like the Disk Management utility. Even though the process of creating VHDs in Windows is nothing hard, it sure is lengthy and cumbersome. If you are someone who creates and manages multiple VHDs, here is how you can make your work much easier using Simple VHD Manager.
Simple VHD Manager
Simple VHD Manager is a free portable lightweight application that makes it really easy to create, mount and manage any and all VHDs in your system. To start, download the application from the official site, extract the contents, and place it somewhere you can easily access it.
Now, execute the file “VhdManager.exe,” and you will be greeted with a simple user interface. This is where Simple VHD Manager lists all your VHDs to easily manage them without messing around in the File Explorer.
To create a VHD, select the option “Create and attach VHD” from the File menu. If you already have a VHD, then you can add it to the application by selecting the option “Add File.”
This action will open the “Create and Attach VHD” window. Here, specify the VHD size in GB, select the radio buttons “VHD” and “Dynamically expanding” and click on the “Create and Attach VHD” button. The Dynamically Expanding option ensures that the VHD size increases as you add data to it and that it is not used all at once.
Note: VHDX disk format is an improvement over normal VHD format and is not compatible with the older versions of Windows.
Select the destination and name of the VHD file, and click on the “Save” button to complete the procedure.
As soon as the VHD has been created, you can see it in the main window of Simple VHD Manager and it is also automatically attached to Windows File Explorer.
To start using the VHD, you first need to format it. To do that, open up the file explorer, find the attached VHD, right-click on it and then select the option “Format.”
Here in this window, select the file format and click on the “Start” button to format the disk. If you don’t know what file format to use then leave the defaults as is.
Once you are done working with a VHD, you can detach the VHD from Windows using Simple VHD Manager. To do that, open the Simple VHD Manager and deselect the checkbox next to your VHD or right-click on the VHD and select the option “Detach.”
If you want your VHD to automatically attach and display in the File Explorer on system startup, then select the VHD in the application and select the option “Add Marked to System Startup” from the “Options” menu.
You can also add mounting options to the right-click context menu. To do that, select the option “Add to Context Menu” from the “Options” menu.
The above action will open the “Add to Context Menu” window. Here, select the “Add Options for VHD File” checkbox and click on the “Install” button. If you also want to add VHD options to the “SendTo” menu, then don’t forget to select the “Add VHD Options to SendTo Menu” checkbox.
If you ever want to remove these options from the right-click context menu, click on the “Uninstall All” button.
If you want to delete a VHD, right-click on the VHD in Simple VHD Manager and select the option “Remove.” This action deletes the VHD from your system and from the application.
As you can see, Simple VHD Manager makes it really easy to manage multiple VHDs where you can attach and detach them as required. So, do give the application a try. After all, it is free and portable.
Do comment below sharing your thoughts and experiences about using Simple VHD Manager to manage your VHDs.