VMware Workstation 4

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The suspend and resume feature is most useful when you want to save the current state of your virtual machine, then pick up work later with the virtual machine in the same state it was when you stopped.

Once you resume and do additional work in the virtual machine, there is no way to return to the state the virtual machine was in at the time you suspended.

To preserve the state of the virtual machine so you can return to the same state repeatedly, take a snapshot. For details, see Using the Snapshot.

The speed of the suspend and resume operations depends on how much data has changed while the virtual machine has been running. In general, the first suspend operation takes a bit longer than later suspend operations do.

When you suspend a virtual machine, a file with a .vmss extension is created. This file contains the entire state of the virtual machine. When you resume the virtual machine, its state is restored from the .vmss file.

To suspend a virtual machine:

1. If your virtual machine is running in full screen mode, return to window mode by pressing the Ctrl-Alt key combination.
2. Click Suspend on the VMware Workstation toolbar.
3. When VMware Workstation has completed the suspend operation, it is safe to exit VMware Workstation.

   File > Exit

To resume a virtual machine that you have suspended:

1. Start VMware Workstation and choose a virtual machine you have suspended.
2. Click Resume on the VMware Workstation toolbar.

   Note that any applications you were running at the time you suspended the virtual machine are running and the content is the same as it was when you suspended the virtual machine.