Macrium viBoot v8 Beta

	Visit the Macrium web site Browse our Support Forum
	Complete User Guide
	Export this page

Search

Installer Download

The viBoot beta installer download is password protected. The password will have been provided when invited to the beta program.

https://updates.macrium.com/Reflect/v8/viBootBeta/download.asp

Macrium viBoot

Macrium viBoot enables you, to instantly create, start and manage Microsoft Hyper-V and Oracle VirtualBox virtual machines using one or more Macrium Reflect image files as the basis of the virtual machine storage sub-system.

At a minimum, viBoot enables you to boot into the images you have made using Macrium Reflect, for validation purposes, or to retrieve data from old applications stored on a bootable image. At an enterprise level, you could recover an entire network environment in minutes.

Macrium viBoot is now built upon new technology that allows it to instantly present a Macrium Reflect image file as a Microsoft Virtual Disk (.VHDX) file.  

When creating a new virtual machine Macrium viBoot will create two Microsoft Virtual Hard Disk (.VHDX) files for each of the disks described within the selected Macrium Image file. The first VHDX file is incomplete and only contains enough information to describe the disk layout and a signature to mark it as a Macrium viBoot VHDX. The data for the disk is retrieved from the Macrium Image File by the Macrium Virtual Disk Provider filter driver as required. Because the data is not stored with the VHDX, it size will never exceed a few megabytes. The second VHDX file is a standard differencing disk that will receive any modifications made to during the lifetime of the virtual machine.

As with any differencing VHDX, this file can grow dramatically in size, depending on the usage of the virtual machine.

In VirtualBox support mode, it further creates two VMware Virtual Machine Disk (.VMDK) files. The first VMDK file is incomplete and points to differencing VHDX disk create earlier. The data for the disk is retrived from the differencing VHDX file by Macrium VMDK Virtual Disk Provider filter driver as required. The second VMDK file is a standard differencing disk for storing modifications made by virtual machine.

These VHDX and VMDK files are stored in the designated Macrium viBoot repository and remain open until the Macrium viBoot virtual machine is deleted from within viBoot.

Note: The default location for the viBoot VHDX files is C:\ProgramData\Macrium\viBoot. This is configurable from within the Macrium viBoot UI.

Files related to VirtualBox VMs are stored under C:\ProgramData\Macrium\viBoot\VirtualBox

New Features

• New UI implemented using the new Macrium ‘Dark Theme’
• Direct support for Oracle VirtualBox v6.0 & v6.1

Macrium viBoot v8 introduces the new Dark Theme UI elements and background. This provides an enhanced user experience with higher contrast text and a more modern look and feel.

We’ve also added direct support for Oracle VirtualBox by implementing .mrimg to  .vmdk file virtualization. VirtualBox provides an alternative to Microsoft Hyper-V for instant image virtualization. VirtualBox v6.1.4 can be run on Windows 8/Server 2012 R2 and later regardless of whether the native OS includes a Windows Hypervisor layer. In addition, VirtualBox includes a USB pass-through virtual device that enables USB drives, including flash, to be accessible from inside the Virtual Machine.

viBoot can be switched between Hyper-V and VirtualBox mode using the ‘Tools’ menu:

Macrium viBoot will be restarted after changing Hypervisor mode. This doesn’t affect the state of existing VMs, whether they are running or not:

The current hypervisor type is shown in the application title bar:

Booting an image directly from Macrium Reflect

An image that contains the Windows System and Boot partition(s) can be directly booted from the 'Restore' view in Macrium Reflect. 

If an image contains the partitions required for booting then the image will show an active 'Boot Image' Link:

Otherwise the link will be disabled:

To boot an image directly with viBoot.

1. Click the 'Restore tab.
2. Select the image.

3. Click the 'Boot Image' link.
    
   Note: If viBoot cannot run on your Windows installation then you will receive an error message indicating the reason(s):
   
   
   
   

   
   

4. If viBoot can launch, the viBoot Hyper-V settings dialog will start.
   
5. Make any changes to the VM properties and click 'Finish'

The VM will now start and boot directly into Windows.

Starting the viBoot create Virtual Machine Wizard from Macrium Reflect. 

Take the 'Restore' > 'Launch Macrium viBoot' menu option

Or, click the 'Launch Macrium viBoot' task link on the Restore tab.

This will start the the viBoot Virtual Machine User Interface.

Launching viBoot as a standalone application

viBoot is installed by default during the standard Macrium Reflect installation and can be started using the installed shortcut:

Main Window

The “Virtual Machines” view (1), displays the name of the viBoot created virtual machine, the current state of the virtual machine (Off, Running, etc) and the current CPU usage of the virtual machine. Selecting a Hyper-V virtual machine in the “Virtual Machines” view (1) will update the “Mounted Images” view (2) to list the Macrium Reflect images that are being referenced by the virtual machine.

The “Mounted Images” view (2), displays the path of the image file(s) used to create the virtual drive(s), the physical drive number assigned to the drive by Windows, the partition type of the drive (MBR or GPT) and the drive capacity.

The "Log" view (3), shows a record of the actions taken by viBoot.

Main Window Commands

Macrium viBoot toolbar:

New VM Wizard

The "Welcome" page provides a brief introduction and explains some of the limitations of virtualization.

Select Image Files allows you to add one or more Macrium Reflect image files to be used for the virtual machine.

The first boot-able disk will be marked as the boot disk. If there are multiple disks that are boot-able, these can be set to be the boot disk by selecting the disk and clicking the "Set as Boot" button.

Hyper-V VM & VirtualBox Settings allows you to configure the virtual machine. The RAM and CPU are limited to match the host computer. If the number of processors is set to "Automatic", viBoot will interrogate the Windows settings from the image files to set the correct number of processors. A Virtual Switch of "<None>" ensures that the new virtual machine is not connected to the network.

VirtualBox VM settings are similar to Hyper-V except that NAT and Bridged Adapter options are supported. These can be changed later via VirtualBox Manager.
Please see VirtualBox documentation for more details.

Options

The “Options” button on the Macrium viBoot main toolbar, will display the “Options” dialog box. From here you can modify some of the behavior of Macrium viBoot.

The “Virtual Machine Repository” specifies the folder that Macrium viBoot will use to store Virtual Machine configurations and the virtual machine drive cache.

Macrium viBoot writes a log of actions taken by the application. This file is saved to "%LOCALAPPDATA%\Temp\Macrium". The log file is configured by the following options:

Log level - Controls type of information written to the log file:

• Critical
• Error
• Warning
• Information
• Debug

Maximum number of files - Number of log files to keep before purging. A value of zero will disable this check.

Days to keep - Log files older than the specified number will be purged. A value of zero will disable this check.

Maximum log file size(MB) - Maximum file size for the log file, before a new log file is created. A value of zero will disable this check.