Last time we talked about how to best optimize your VM for a smooth work experience. This time we’ll talk about working with VM. These tips will help you avoid loss of time and grief in losing a virtual machine or critical data you have on your partitions. They will make your job easier in a day to day work.

Tip #1

Do not use fdisk or a similar utility to create partition tables, even if it is in the guest operating system on remote VMware ESX servers while you are in the virtual machine on the console. After you add a virtual machine disk by using one or more partitions on a physical disk, never modify the partition tables by running fdisk in the guest operating system.


Tip #2

Always make backup copies of all the files in your virtual machine’s directory before you start a process like moving a virtual machine from one ESX server to another. Something could go wrong during the process. Even if you just use multiple images during testing, always make a backup of the original VM images. This will save you time and nerves when something goes wrong.

Tip #3

While a recording is in progress, avoid exiting Workstation and allowing the virtual machine to run in the background. Doing so might cause the virtual machine to crash. Always stop recording before sending a virtual machine to run in the background.

Tip #4

Do not shrink a virtual disk if the virtual machine has snapshots. To keep the virtual disk in its current state, use the snapshot manager to delete all snapshots. To discard changes made since you took a snapshot, revert to the snapshot.

Tip #5

Do not delete a locked snapshot. If a snapshot has been cloned, it becomes locked. If you delete a locked snapshot, the clones created from that snapshot no longer operate.

Tip #6

Do not enable shared folders. Enabling might pose a security risk because a shared folder could enable existing programs inside the virtual machine to access the host file system of a remote server without your knowledge.

Happy working and remember to take good care of your VMs. With these tips you should have smoother work experience in everyday work.

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