This will provide an additional layer of protection for the data within the virtual machines, with less impact on their performance than if data encryption were performed within the virtual machine. Instead, we recommend placing these files on a separate drive from the management OS, and using Bitlocker to encrypt them, as discussed in Chapter 3. With Hyper-V, this is no longer supported for VHD files. Windows Encrypted File System, or EFS, was a popular method in previous Microsoft virtualization strategies for encrypting the virtual drive files. The rights listed in Table 9.1 will need to be applied to the directory containing the VHD files. You can supply a new location for these files in the Hyper-V manager. These files you will most likely want to move, and further secure.

These are kept by default in the %users% ∣ Public ∣ Documents ∣Hyper-V∣ Virtual Hard Disks directory. Virtual hard drive (VHD) files can vary greatly in size, as they contain the virtual machine OS and data. Other groups should be allowed only the access required for their function, that is, the service account used for backups, and so forth. If you choose to move them, be sure that the System account and the Administrators group both have Full Control over the directory and files.

These files are very small, and usually the default location is acceptable. By default, the machine configuration files are kept in %programdata% | Microsoft | Windows | Hyper-V | directory.

There are steps you can take to further secure the virtual machine configuration files and virtual hard disk files.

What is virtualbox virtual hard disk