How to Create and mount VHD files in windows 7

Microsoft’s Virtual PC creates its virtual machine hard drives in VHD files, and Windows 7 can now mount these directly so you can access them in the host system. Click Start, type diskmgmt.msc and press Enter, then click Action > Attach VHD and choose the file you’d like to mount. It will then appear as a virtual drive in Explorer and can be accessed, copied or written just like any other drive.

Click Action > Create VHD and you can now create a new virtual drive of your own (right-click it, select Initialise Disk, and after it’s set up right-click the unallocated space and select New Simple Volume to set this up). Again, you’ll be left with a virtual drive that behaves just like any other, where you can drag and drop files, install programs, test partitioning software or do whatever you like. But it’s actually just this VHD file on your real hard drive which you can easily back up or share with others. Right-click the disk (that’s the left-hand label that says “Disk 2″ or whatever) and select Detach VHD to remove it.

The command line DISKPART utility has also been upgraded with tools to detach a VHD file, and an EXPAND command to increase a virtual disk’s maximum size. Don’t play around with this unless you know what you’re doing, though – it’s all too easy to trash your system.

When I first saw the default search pane in Windows XP, my instinct was to return it to its classic look; that puppy had to go. Of course, I later discovered that a doggie door is built into the applet. Click “Change preferences” then “Without an animated screen character.” If you’d rather give it a bare-bones “Windows 2000″ look and feel, fire up your Registry editor and navigate to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ CabinetState.

You may need to create a new string value labeled “Use Search Asst” and set it to “no”.

Note:

before editing the registry u should backup  registry first. Go to file menu in registry editor and Click “Export” and save it. If registry edit malfunctioned u can use this file to restore registry.