Virtual machines can help us to be more productive in our day to day. Thanks to them we can install any operating system or test programs, above our host system, with the assurance that everything we do, or what happens in the virtualized machine, does not affect our PC.
Installing and configuring an operating system in a virtual machine is done the same as if we installed it in a normal computer. Therefore, installing an operating system (such as Windows, or Ubuntu) and fine-tuning it takes time. And when I go out it goes wrong and “breaks” our virtual machine, it is necessary to lose that time again to get it back on track.
Fortunately, hypervisors for creating and managing virtual machines, like VMware , have functions that allow us to save the state of the virtual machine and restore a previous state very easily. This is how “Snapshot” or “Restore Points” work.
How a Snapshot works in a virtual machine
A Snapshot, or capture, is an optional configuration that we can find within the programs that allow us to make virtual machines. Broadly speaking, what this function does is save the current state of our virtual machine (configuration and hard drives as is) so that, by continuing to use it, all changes are recorded separately.
We can create the restoration points we want , and move from one to another without problems.
When something goes wrong, we can go back to a previous restore point while the virtual machine is powered off. Doing so will erase everything that has been done since we created the point, leaving the machine as it was at the time the Snapshot was created.
It does not matter that we have formatted ten times and installed twenty operating systems, that a virus has fulminated the data or a ransomware has encrypted them. By restoring the Snapshot, our virtual machine will return to its original state.
How to create a Snapshot with VMware
The first thing we must have is a virtual machine created and already configured. Ideally, and the most practical, is that we have it with the recently updated operating system, with the latest updates and patches installed and, finally, with the VMware Tools installed.
Once we have the virtual machine ready, we can create a Snapshot of “newly installed” that will allow us to restore the MV to this point whenever we want. To do this, we will right-click on the virtual machine, and choose the option ” Snapshot> Take Snapshot “.
The program will ask us to give a name to this restoration point. And, in addition to the name, we will have to give it a description.
Finally we will click on “Take Snapshot” and voila. VMware will create this virtual machine restore point. The process, yes, can take a few seconds. When it is finished we can reboot the virtual machine and do everything we want in it, without worrying.
When something goes wrong, or if the virtual machine starts to give problems, then it’s time to go back. By right-clicking on the virtual machine, and selecting the “Snapshot” option , we can go to the restore point manager, where all will appear.
We can choose the moment we want to go back from among all the points we have. Each point will have its name and its own description depending on what we have entered when creating it. This way we can identify it more easily.
We will choose the moment to which we want to go back, we will click on ” Go To “, and voila. VMware will take care of reversing all changes and leaving the virtual machine as it was at the time of its creation.
The AutoProtect function allows us to create automatic Snapshots
In addition to being able to create our own snapshots manually whenever we want, if we cannot afford to lose certain configurations when using virtual machines, VMware offers us a feature called “AutoProtect”.
As its name suggests, AutoProtect is in charge of automatically protecting machines created with VMware.
This function allows us to establish a period of time (every half hour, every hour or daily) each one when Snapshots will be created and the maximum number of them that will be saved. In this way, the software will take care of creating the restore points automatically without having to worry.
The AutoProtect function is fully compatible with creating manual Snapshots.