Comment 7 for bug 1490611

First, I'd say that if you are converting an image over to use on Hyper-V, you would probably be better served using the VHDX format (completely different from VHD) - it is the newer format (and completely different from VHD), and is supported by QEMU as well. It is better defined and more consistent (at least so far) in its specification.

That said, I think for the specific VHD problem we could look at the Creator field in the image. My only reservations on that are:

1.) I haven't looked at the Creator field comprehensively across all revisions of Hyper-V and Virtual PC. But in my small sample size, it seems feasible.

2.) It most likely won't be 100%, because of edge cases (e.g. I don't know what happens when Hyper-V opens a Virtual-PC produced VHD file, and under what circumstances it may or may not alter the Creator field)

But the above two reservations can be overcome with the appropriate options that can be passed to the VHD format, to override the auto-detection method.

I have access to both Virtual PC and Hyper-V, so I can put together a small patch series tomorrow to try that out.