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Suspending a virtual machine

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 Workstation toolbar.

By default, the state of a virtual machine is suspended or saved to disk, unless you specify otherwise. You can use the Configuration Editor to modify suspend options for your virtual machine. Suspend options include:

The speed of suspend and restore options depends on how much has changed during your working session. In general, the first suspend will take a bit longer than later suspend operations.

The following table contrasts Suspend to disk and Suspend to memory under certain situations.

Situation

Suspend to disk

Suspend to memory

Multiple virtual machines are running on a system with limited physical memory.

Memory is released so that it may be used my other applications.

It is possible that you may not be able to resume a suspended virtual machine if too little memory is available at the time.

Memory is not released because it is required to maintain the state of the virtual machine.

Virtual machine(s) running on a portable computer. You need to save power.

You may exit the virtual machine after suspending, and save your work for when you can resume it.

The saved state of the virtual machine is only available as long as the virtual machine is powered on.

The guest operating system in a virtual machine consumes resources while idling (for example, Windows 95, Windows 98, and Red Hat Linux 6.0).

You may suspend a virtual machine to disk and then exit.

You must resume the virtual machine and perform an orderly shutdown before powering off and exiting.

Warning: If you power off or exit a virtual machine that is suspended to memory, you will lose all your work and possibly leave the guest operating system in a bad or unstable state.

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