How to save VMware Fusion VM?

Question

I am working on creating 3 virtual XP versions with IE6, 7 and 8 separately for my team. I started with the old VMware image that we had with IE6 and SP2, and went through it and configured it for everything we need, leaving IE6 behind.

Now I need to duplicate this virtual machine and subsequently upgrade it to IE7 and 8 in the following two instances.

My original VM had files: .nvram, .vmdk, .vmsd, .vmx and .vmxf. When I created a new vm from this, I had to select the .vmdk file. Then VMware conducted and built the other files he needed.

I found that all the updates that I made in the first copy of XP are stored in a separate file, which I sent VMware to store in / usr / local / vms. With the updates and two snapshots that I took during the update process, now it's about 6gb.

I duplicated my original virtual machine and installed a new computer called IE7, but when it booted up, none of the updates were there. So now I know that all my changes were saved in the / usr / local / vms / IE 6 6gb file.

How can I merge all my updates back into a .vmdk file so I can A) Create the other 2 IE7 / 8 virtual machines that I need, and B) host 3 vm images on our network so our other developers can use

My thinking is that since I started this process from a .vmdk file, there should be a way to get everything back to this.

Answer 1

Deleting a snapshot should transfer the delta files back to the main .vmdk file. You must be able to take a snapshot before installing the browser and deploy each installation after the snapshot.

If they should be reference copies for testing, I would use the clone / copy function to create separate virtual machines, one for each browser. It may be easier to maintain and share with other users.