Windows Sysinternals has unveiled Disk2vhd 2.0, a tool for converting physical Windows systems to virtual formats.

The major plus in this release is support for VHDX, a significant update to the VHD format which offers much-improved performance, increased reliability, and more. Just leave the “Use Vhdx” box checked and the program will create a VHDX file for you.

The new release gains support for capturing WinRE (Windows Recovery Environment) volumes and removable drives.

The official blog post on the release also says it “includes an option to capture live volumes instead of relying on volume shadow copy (VSS)”, but we’re not quite sure how this works. There is now a “Use Volume Shadow Copy” checkbox, but if you clear that, does the program use some other method? We’re not sure.

The final detail aside, though, Disk2vhd 2.0 is still a quick and easy way to convert physical systems to virtual, and the new VHDX format justifies the update all on its own. Go take a look.