How to backup virtual machines created with VMware Workstation Pro.
After taking the time to setup a virtual machine in Workstation Pro, before you do anything else, back it up. Create a complete copy of the VM and store it in a different folder or on a separate drive.
Backing Up Workstation Pro Virtual Machines.
To create a complete backup of your virtual machines in Workstation Pro, all you need to do is to copy and paste the VM folders to another location on your system.
Before you begin backing up, shutdown your VMs. They need to be completely closed down otherwise you’ll run into problems.
Workstation Pro stores all VMs in a Virtual Machines folder inside your Documents folder.
Navigate to the Virtual Machines folder and open it by double left clicking.
Copy The Folders
Inside the Virtual Machines folder you’ll see all the VMs that you’ve created. Each folder relates to a different VM. So if you’ve only created one, you’ll only see one folder.
To back them up, simply Copy and Paste each folder to a different location on your computer.
You could just save them into a separate folder, or move them onto a different drive, or USB drive.
They Are Large Folders.
Each folder represents an entire virtual machine and so they are rather large folders. Depending on the operating system that you’ve used, they’ll be at least 10GB each. Probably much more than that.
That’s all there is to backing up virtual machines in Workstation Pro.
If you’ve got several machines, then you will need a large amount of storage space.
How To Restore A Virtual Machine Backup In Workstation Pro.
When you want to restore the backed up VM, it’s really just easy to do. Again the virtual machine needs to be shutdown before you begin the restoration.
When you power on a virtual machine in Workstation Pro, the program looks for the folder where the VM is stored. By default, that’ll be the Virtual Machines folder in your Documents folder.
Delete The VM Folder.
Open the Virtual Machines folder and then delete the VM that you want to replace with a backed up version.
Restore The Backed Up VM Folder.
Now go to the folder (location) that you saved your backups to and Copy the backed up virtual machine folder.
Then Paste it into the Virtual Machines folder in your Documents folder.
Power On Backed Up VM.
When the copying and pasting has finished, go back to Workstation Pro and power on your virtual machine just as you normally would.
You’ll find that the backed up virtual machine will boot up.
This works because Workstation Pro doesn’t know or care which version of a VM it works with.
As long as it finds the correct files in the correct location, it’ll be happy.
Snapshots.
If you regularly create Snapshots of your virtual machines (and you should), you’ll need to delete them all and start again.
That’s because the snapshots refer to the previous version of the VM. Not this, back up version.
So delete all the Snapshots and then start again.
Summary.
Generally I find that the Snapshots will get you out of most situations. It’s one of the best features of the Pro version of Workstation over the Player version.
Now I don’t know if it’s only me, but every so often I’ll push the VM so hard that even the Snapshots can’t rectify it. That’s where having a complete backup of the original installation comes in.
This is especially true when working with activated versions of Windows. Having paid for a licence, you really don’t want to lose it.
