Taking a snapshot of a virtual machine saves its current state and enables you to return to the same state repeatedly. When you take a snapshot, Workstation Pro captures the entire state of the virtual machine. You can use the snapshot manager to review and act on the snapshots for an active virtual machine.
Using Snapshots to Preserve Virtual Machine States A snapshot includes the contents of the virtual machine memory, virtual machine settings, and the state of all the virtual disks. When you revert to a snapshot, you return the memory, settings, and virtual disks of the virtual machine to the state they were in when you took the snapshot.
Using the Snapshot Manager You can review all snapshots for a virtual machine and act on them directly in the snapshot manager.
Take a Snapshot of a Virtual Machine When you take a snapshot, you preserve the state of a virtual machine at a specific moment in time and the virtual machine continues to run. Taking a snapshot enables you to return to the same state repeatedly. You can take a snapshot while a virtual machine is powered on, powered off, or suspended.
Revert to a Snapshot You can restore a virtual machine to a previous state by reverting to a snapshot.
Take or Revert to a Snapshot at Power Off You can configure a virtual machine to revert to a snapshot or take a new snapshot when you power off the virtual machine. This feature is useful if you need to discard changes when a virtual machine is powered off.
Enable AutoProtect Snapshots The AutoProtect feature preserves the state of a virtual machine by taking snapshots at regular intervals that you specify. This process is in addition to manual snapshots, which you can take at any time.
Enable Background Snapshots When you enable background snapshots, you can continue working while Workstation Pro preserves the state of a virtual machine. A progress indicator for the background snapshot appears in a corner of the Workstation Pro window.
Exclude a Virtual Disk from Snapshots You can configure snapshots so that Workstation Pro preserves states only for certain virtual disks.
Delete a Snapshot When you delete a snapshot, you delete the state of the virtual machine that you preserved and you can never return to that state again. Deleting a snapshot does not affect the current state of the virtual machine.
Troubleshooting Snapshot Problems You can use a variety of procedures for diagnosing and fixing problems with snapshots.