R1Soft, developer of Continuous Data Protection® for Windows and Linux, announced today the release of its newest free tool, R1Soft Hyper-V VHD Explorer, which allows users to mount and attach Hyper-V Virtual Hard Disk (.VHD) files with a simple point-and-click.

R1Soft Hyper-V VHD Explorer adds right-click Windows Explorer shell integration for mounting and attaching Hyper-V VHD files. While mounting VHD files could traditionally be done with PowerShell scripts, the new R1Soft VHD Explorer makes it possible to attach VHD files with unmatched ease. Users can simply manage all of their mounted VHD files from the VHD Explorer graphical user interface.

The utility helps administrators modify and troubleshoot Hyper-V Virtual Machine hard disks without having to boot the virtual machine. The VHD Explorer utility also offers users the capability to open restored VHD files and copy out individual files for data restoration. The R1Soft VHD Explorer shell integration works by adding right-click “attach” and “detach” actions to VHD files in MS Windows Explorer.

"We have seen a lot of growth in our hosting and cloud computing customers adopting MS Hyper-V. This new free tool a way to make the task of administrating and restoring files for MS Hyper-V just a little bit easier," said David Wartell, founder of R1Soft, a division of BBS Technologies, Inc.

Beyond providing a free Hyper-V tool, R1Soft offers two high-performance CDP backup products for MS Hyper-V. CDP Enterprise Edition provides a single web-based console to manage backups for up to 30 or more physical servers hosting Hyper-V guests. CDP Standard Edition is easy-to-use Continuous Data Protection software for a single physical Hyper-V server and requires no dedicated hardware. Any of R1Soft’s CDP products can be installed directly onto a physical server to protect guest VMs using MS Volume Shadow Copy Service for Hyper-V.