With Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 you get the opportunity to boot directly from a vhd file. The operating system in the vhd file will have direct access to the machine hardware. It will not run as a virtual machine with synthetic or emulated adapters...

System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) has been offering a relatively simple way of doing physical-to-virtual migrations (P2V) for a while. You just click on the “Convert Physical Server” icon and off you go. Despite the name, it also works with...