Undo Drives Feature for Virtual PC Hard Disk Images (825093)

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When you designate a hard disk image as "undoable" (click the guest PC, click Settings, click Undo Drives, and then click to select the Enable undo drives check box), the information that the guest operating system writes to the hard disk image is not written immediately to the hard disk image file. Instead, changes are written to a temporary file where they accumulate throughout the session. When you shut down the virtual PC, you can commit or undo the changes. If you commit them, the changes from the temporary hard disk image merge into the original hard disk image. If you undo the changes, the temporary file is discarded, and the original hard disk image remains unmodified.

The Undo Drives feature is useful when you want to maintain the original state of a hard disk image, such as in a development or an educational environment. The feature is also useful if you run software that may contain a virus or a disk-related issue that can corrupt the hard disk image. You can also use this feature if you want to test software. For example, if you download and install a shareware program from the Internet, and after you try the software, you do not want to keep it on your computer, when you shut down the virtual PC, you are prompted to commit the changes to your hard disk image. If you do not commit the changes, your hard disk image remains in the state that it was in before you installed the software.

Note The temporary undo file can grow large if you make significant changes to the hard disk image during the session (for example, if you install a large program on the virtual PC). Therefore, make sure that you select a location for the undo file that has sufficient space. To determine or to change the temporary undo file location, click the guest PC, click Settings, and then click Undo Drives. The file location appears in the Undo Folder Location box.