VMWARE Fusion: Create appliance or backup virtual machine

[timswim78]

I have VMWARE fusion running on Tiger OS X 10.4. I plan to erase Tiger and do a clean install of Leopard on the same machine. I would like to be able to backup my virtual machine of Windows 2000, so that I can restore it and use it, once I install Leopard and reinstall fusion. Is this possible?

Can I backup the virtual machine somehow, or can I create an appliance that I can open with fusion?

 

[AsianriceX]

I'm pretty sure you can just copy the bundled package that is your virtual machine to an external device, install Leopard, install VMWare Fusion, copy package back over and go from there.

It should be all be self contained.

 

[timswim78]

Originally posted by: AsianriceX
I'm pretty sure you can just copy the bundled package that is your virtual machine to an external device, install Leopard, install VMWare Fusion, copy package back over and go from there.

It should be all be self contained.

Where can I find the virtual machine files?

 

[timswim78]

OK, I think that I found it. It is in machd/users/username/documents/virtual machines

 

[loup garou]

Originally posted by: timswim78
OK, I think that I found it. It is in machd/users/username/documents/virtual machines

That's it (as long as that's really where your vmx/vmdks are, by default it is), just back it up, copy it back over after your Leopard install, install Fusion and File>Open the vmx file.

 

[timswim78]

Yep. It works. When I copied the VM's back, they were not showing open in Fusion. So, I opened each VM by double-clicking on it in the finder, and now they all show up in Fusion.

Thanks all.

 

[Kaido]

Yup, you just back up the folder/file depending whether you use VMware or Parallels. Both can be backed up.

I created a pristine copy of my XP VM installation complete with personal settings, software updates, and various applications that I used, then backed it up to my file server (to DVD also works). That way if you ever need a clean start, you can just copy it over and start anew. I just wish XP had something like Time Machine