HYPER-V Non persistent Disks ???

jimbo45 said:

Hi folks
particularly @Kari

With HYPER V is it possible to create a training environment so that people can do exercises / tutorials on a VM but at the end of the session the Virtual HDD's are restored to the initial state.

With VMWARE it's easy enough but I'm not sure how HYPER V works. This way is better than just restoring VM's every time. Note this is different from SNAPSHOTS.

Cheers
jimbo

Dead easy - just create a checkpoint at start of session, and wind back to that at end of session.

Also, you can export the VM for sharing so it can be reinstated quickly as an added precaution.

cereberus said:

Dead easy - just create a checkpoint at start of session, and wind back to that at end of session.

Exactly.

Create the VM. Before booting it first time open its Settings and disable automatic checkpoints (#1), check that checkpoints are enabled (#2) and that checkpoint type is set as Standard Checkpoints (#3).



Boot VM, set it up as it should be at start before user starts training (install required software, set resolution and other settings and so on). Shut down VM. Create checkpoint:



Start VM, change it as you wish or as training requires. Shut down when done, apply checkpoint to restore saved state:





That's it. Next time the VM is started, it restores the saved state as in selected checkpoint.

Notice that by default, if you have applied checkpoints but not started virtual machines after applying them, next time Windows will be restarted the virtual machines will start automatically. To avoid automatic start of virtual machines with applied checkpoints after Windows boot, set Automatic Start Action to Nothing. Default is Automatically start if it was running when the service stopped, which not only starts virtual machines which were running when service was stopped (Windows shut down / restarted), but also automatically starts those virtual machines which had a checkpoint applied before service was stopped.



Kari