Reduce VPCs size

This is a common issue we are all having. Creating seperate vhd files for each different environment such as SharePoint, Biztalk, Backend servers (Exchange, SQL etc). We still need to create different vhd files for these but instead of having 30 GB per environment, we are going to create one base vhd and inherit others from them( like an OOP ;) ). So lets take windows server 2008 as main operating system. We are going to create one vhd file and install Windows 2008 Server into that one. So lets name it as BaseWin2008.vhd .For the rest we are going to create them as using BaseWin2008.vhd file as base file. So that new vhd will only save the difference. It is saving pretty GBs is not it :)

So here is the command to create a vhd from base vhd file.

diskpart
create vdisk file=C:\SharePoint2010.vhd parent=C:\BaseWin2008.vhd
exit

Howto compact a vhd file

1. First of all, install cccleaner. This tool is very usefull. It will remove all unnecessary files from your drive.

2. Defrag your drive.

3. From the CD menu, select Capture ISO Image and browse to the Virtual PC additions directory, which is %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Virtual PC\Virtual Machine Additions by default.
Mount Virtual Disk Precompactor.iso. Click ok to allow it to prepare your drive to be able to compacted.
4. Unmount the ISO from the CD menu.
5. Finally execute the Virtual Disk Wizard from the File menu and compact your VHD file.

Do not forget to make it read only if you want to use it as a base disk.

ADO.NET Data Services v1.5 CTP2

This release (v1.5) will target the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 & Silverlight 3 platforms and provide new client and server side features for data service developers. In addition, the features included in this release (v1.5) will be part of the .NET Framework 4 release.
http://blogs.msdn.com/astoriateam/archive/2009/08/31/ado-net-data-services-v1-5-ctp2-now-available-for-download.aspx