With snapshots, you can save a particular state of a virtual machine for later use. At any later time, you can revert to that state, even though you may have changed the VM considerably since then. A snapshot of a virtual machine is thus similar to a machine in Saved state, but there can be many of them, and these saved states are preserved.
To see the snapshots of a virtual machine, click the machine name in
If you select multiple VMs in the machine list, all snapshots are listed for each VM.
Until you take a snapshot of the virtual machine, the list of snapshots will be empty, except for the Current State item. This item represents the current point in the lifetime of the virtual machine.
The Snapshots window includes a toolbar, enabling you to perform the following snapshot operations:
Take. Takes a snapshot of the selected VM. See
Delete. Removes a snapshot from the list of snapshots. See
Restore. Restores the VM state to be the same as the selected
snapshot. See
Properties. Displays the properties for the selected snapshot. The Attributes tab is used to specify a Name and Description for the snapshot. The Information tab shows VM settings for the snapshot.
Clone. Displays the Clone Virtual Machine wizard. This enables you to create a clone of the VM, based on the selected snapshot.
Settings. Available for the Current State snapshot only. Displays the Settings window for the VM, enabling you to make configuration changes.
Discard. For a running VM, discards the saved state for the VM and closes it down.
Start. Start the VM. This operation is available for the Current State item.