VMware Workstation 3.2

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Do you ever have a bad day and wish you could get rid of all the changes you've made to files on your computer? In a VMware Workstation virtual machine, you can. The secret is in the disk modes.

VMware Workstation uses disks in three different modes - persistent, undoable and nonpersistent.

Disks in persistent mode behave exactly like conventional disk drives on a computer. All data written to a disk in persistent mode is written out permanently to the disk as soon as the guest operating system writes the data.

When you use undoable mode, you have the option later of keeping or discarding changes you have made while the virtual machine is running. Until you decide, the changes are saved in a redo-log file. You can also keep the changes for the next time the virtual machine runs, but still have the option of discarding all the accumulated changes at some time in the future.

All changes to a disk in nonpersistent mode are discarded after the virtual machine is powered off.

You can use the Configuration Editor to change the disk mode for your virtual machine.

1. Start the virtual machine, but don't click the Power On button yet.

   For Windows hosts, complete steps 1 and 2 under Starting a Virtual Machine on a Windows Host.

   For Linux hosts, complete steps 1 and 2 under Starting a Virtual Machine on a Linux Host.

2. Choose Settings > Configuration Editor. The Configuration Editor appears.

   

3. On a Windows host, click the name of the drive you want to change.

   

   On a Linux host, click the + sign beside IDE Drives or SCSI Drives to expand that part of the tree, then click the name of the drive you want to change.

4. Select the appropriate option for persistent, undoable or nonpersistent mode.

   Click OK to save your changes and close the Configuration Editor.