| 1 | <?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
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| 2 | <!DOCTYPE topic PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DITA Topic//EN" "topic.dtd">
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| 3 | <topic xml:lang="en-us" id="intro-save-machine-state">
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| 4 | <title>Saving the State of the Machine</title>
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| 5 |
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| 6 | <body>
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| 7 | <p>
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| 8 | When you click on the <b outputclass="bold">Close</b>
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| 9 | button of your virtual machine window, at the top right of the
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| 10 | window, just like you would close any other window on your
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| 11 | system, Oracle VM VirtualBox asks you whether you want to save or
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| 12 | power off the VM. As a shortcut, you can also press
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| 13 | <b outputclass="bold">Host key + Q</b>.
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| 14 | </p>
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| 15 | <fig id="fig-vm-close">
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| 16 | <title>Closing Down a Virtual Machine</title>
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| 17 | <image href="images/vm-close.png" placement="break"/>
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| 18 | </fig>
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| 19 | <p>
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| 20 | The difference between the three options is crucial. They mean
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| 21 | the following:
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| 22 | </p>
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| 23 | <ul>
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| 24 | <li>
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| 25 | <p><b outputclass="bold">Save the machine state:</b>
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| 26 | With this option, Oracle VM VirtualBox
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| 27 | <i>freezes</i> the virtual machine by
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| 28 | completely saving its state to your local disk.
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| 29 | </p>
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| 30 | <p>
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| 31 | When you start the VM again later, you will find that the VM
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| 32 | continues exactly where it was left off. All your programs
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| 33 | will still be open, and your computer resumes operation.
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| 34 | Saving the state of a virtual machine is thus in some ways
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| 35 | similar to suspending a laptop computer by closing its lid.
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| 36 | </p>
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| 37 | </li>
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| 38 | <li>
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| 39 | <p><b outputclass="bold">Send the shutdown signal.</b>
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| 40 | This will send an ACPI shutdown signal to the virtual
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| 41 | machine, which has the same effect as if you had pressed the
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| 42 | power button on a real computer. This should trigger a
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| 43 | proper shutdown mechanism from within the VM.
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| 44 | </p>
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| 45 | </li>
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| 46 | <li>
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| 47 | <p><b outputclass="bold">Power off the machine:</b> With
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| 48 | this option, Oracle VM VirtualBox also stops running the virtual
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| 49 | machine, but <i>without</i> saving its state.
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| 50 | </p>
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| 51 | <note type="attention">
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| 52 | <p>
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| 53 | This is equivalent to pulling the power plug on a real
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| 54 | computer without shutting it down properly. If you start
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| 55 | the machine again after powering it off, your OS will have
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| 56 | to reboot completely and may begin a lengthy check of its
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| 57 | virtual system disks. As a result, this should not
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| 58 | normally be done, since it can potentially cause data loss
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| 59 | or an inconsistent state of the guest system on disk.
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| 60 | </p>
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| 61 | </note>
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| 62 | <p>
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| 63 | As an exception, if your virtual machine has any snapshots,
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| 64 | see <xref href="snapshots.dita#snapshots"/>, you can use this option to
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| 65 | quickly <b outputclass="bold">restore the current
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| 66 | snapshot</b> of the virtual machine. In that case,
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| 67 | powering off the machine will discard the current state and
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| 68 | any changes made since the previous snapshot was taken will
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| 69 | be lost.
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| 70 | </p>
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| 71 | </li>
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| 72 | </ul>
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| 73 | <p>
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| 74 | The <b outputclass="bold">Discard</b> button in the
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| 75 | VirtualBox Manager window discards a virtual machine's saved state. This
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| 76 | has the same effect as powering it off, and the same warnings
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| 77 | apply.
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| 78 | </p>
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| 79 | </body>
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| 80 |
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| 81 | </topic>
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