Even though Microsoft has been my bread and butter for the last 12 years, I can't help but think so many of the things they do aren't fully thought through from the end user perspective.
Take this one, for example. In Virtual Server 2005 R2, Microsoft included an incredible tool called VHDMount.exe. The end result--you can mount a VHD as a volume, and read/write against it. A few quick reg edits (or the reg script provided by the Virtual PC guy) and you could get context mount/dismount from within Windows Explorer. Sweet, right?
One would think that such a useful utility would have followed on to Windows 2008 and Hyper-V, where the hypervisor is built into the OS, right? One would think so, but then they'd apparently be the only one. Yes, this feature is gone. How could it happen?
So, I stumbled upon a couple of scripts that invoke the Hyper-V tools to do just that. Please give some mad props to Ravi Chaganti, who figured it out.
http://www.ravichaganti.com/blog/?p=77 - Right click to Mount & Dismount Hyper-V VHD
http://www.ravichaganti.com/blog/?p=81 - Script Update: Right click to Mount & Dismount Hyper-V VHD
You'll want to visit both blog posts. The first post has a ZIP that includes a REG file for exposing a context menu in Windows Explorer for mounting/dismounting. The second post has an update to the script.
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