The Virtual Hard Disk VHD file format allows encapsulation of the hard disk into an individual file for use by the operating system as a virtual disk in all the same ways physical hard disks are used. Also, these files can be used in Hyper-V machines. For ISO files, Windows 10 creates a virtual disk drive. More from Lifewire.Windows 10 supports virtual drives natively. Know How to Create & Mount VHD & VHDX on Windows 10?ĭouble-check the file extension if your file doesn't work with the programs mentioned above.

You can make it a growable image file or one that has a pre-set size. Install the program through the Windows Feature section of Control Panel. Hyper-V Manager is built-in to some versions of Windows. If you find that an application on your PC does try to open the VHDX file but it's the wrong application or if you would rather have another installed program open VHDX files, see our guide for changing file-type associations in Windows. This approach reads data off the VHDX file but it won't let you or any program write information to it-which is useful if you're concerned that the host computer is infected with malware. If you go the second route through Disk Management, you can optionally open the VHDX file in read-only mode by checking that option before you open the file. Read more about how to open disk management if you're not sure how to get there. VHDX files can contain an entire operating system for purposes such as testing software or running older or newer software not compatible with the host operating system or simply to hold files like any other storage container. One can be created from scratch or from backup software like Disk2vhd. It acts like a real, physical hard drive but is stored in a single file that's located on a physical disk like a hard drive.

How to create a vhd file