[lug] Windows Media Player and Virtualization

[David L. Willson]

> >> I was planning on making Ubuntu64 10.10 my virtualization host and
> >> windows
> >> 7 a guest. If I do that, can take multiple snap shots of my guests
> and
> 
> what's the benefit of making multiple snapshots of your guests? i
> figured
> you just installed OSs to the guests, start and stop them as needed
> and
> that was it.  when you want to back up the guest data, one would just
> back
> it up as you normally would to a usb disk or separate partition.  is
> there
> something specific about the benefits of the snapshots for vm guests
> i'm
> missing?

Let's say that you do the same things in a machine, in the same config most of the time, but now and then, you need to be in a different config.

For example, I build a WinXP box and apply the latest service pack. I should snapshot that.
Then I join the local domain and snap it again.
Then I apply all the updates. Snap.
MS Office. Snap.
Now, I want to try an operation in OpenOffice, but I don't want OOo and MSO on at the same time. I revert to the snapshot right after all the updates and install OOo. Snap. Now, my box has two different "futures" from the "all up-to-date" snapshot.
Now, I need to troubleshoot a problem on a customer domain. I revert to the "Service Pack'd" snapshot, add the machine to their domain, and start testing. Sure am glad I had that snapshot. I think I'll take a snapshot of my machine as a member of their domain, just in case.
Now, I revert to the snapshot after installing MSO, and do my "normal" job for a while. I take a "just in case" snapshot every week, and delete the "just in case" snapshot from two weeks before. One day, I get a virus that my A/V can't clean. Oh, snap. Backup my data. Revert the box a week, and I'm OK again. In two weeks or so, I'll revert to the infected snapshot, and give my A/V another shot at it.