.VHD File Extension

A VHD file contains a virtual hard disk image used by Microsoft Windows Virtual PC, a Windows virtualization program. It stores the contents of a hard disk of a virtual machine (VM), which may include disk partitions, a file system, files, and folders. VHD files may be used to install multiple operating systems on a single computer, test software programs, or run older applications.

The VHD Image Format Specification has been available as a royalty-free license since June, 2005. The VHDX format was introduced in 2012 as an extension of the VHD format. Virtual hard disks saved in the VHDX format are stored in .VHDX files.

You can use a variety of virtualization programs, including Microsoft Windows Virtual PC (Windows), VMWare Workstation (Windows, Linux), VMWare Fusion (Mac), and QEMU (cross-platform) to mount the virtual disk a VHD file contains and use it to launch a virtual machine. You can also use 7-Zip (Windows) to examine a VHD file's contents without mounting it.

Source file written in VHDL, which stands for Very High Speed Integrated Circuits (VHSIC) Hardware Description Language (HDL); often used for automating the design of electrical circuits and components.

Electronic engineers can use VHDL to describe hardware components in a text-based format. This description can then be used to manufacture a physical circuit such as a motherboard, processor, or memory module.