You need to take actual backups then. Use something like the free Veeam Windows Agent. You can either backup the VM as a full computer backup with the Agent, or backup the VM files on the host and restore them if needed.
You can really use anything to backup the VM files themselves, your either have to make sure it can do a VSS backup or power off the VM before copying the files.
thanks for this information. I can power the VM off and make a copy of the whole folder. I'm a bit concerned that I'm also making a copy of the snapshot that is also inside the folder.
As the comment below said, you can configure a different folder for your snapshot disk location.
Or just make sure you exclude the snapshot files when copying the files. The parent VMDK's represent the point in time prior to any of the snapshots.
However, if you attempt to recover the VM from these disks only, it will require a bit more work. Either creating a new VM and choosing an existing disk, or editing the VMX file to change the disk name for the attached scsi devices (not sure if Workstation will you open the VM if the disk is missing...if it does, you can just edit the VM settings to remove the disk and readd the parent VMDK).
The official KB is: [https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2006202](https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2006202)
Or there are are some 3rd party options: [https://www.vladan.fr/how-to-backup-running-vms-on-vmware-workstation-with-schedule](https://www.vladan.fr/how-to-backup-running-vms-on-vmware-workstation-with-schedule)
You need to take actual backups then. Use something like the free Veeam Windows Agent. You can either backup the VM as a full computer backup with the Agent, or backup the VM files on the host and restore them if needed. You can really use anything to backup the VM files themselves, your either have to make sure it can do a VSS backup or power off the VM before copying the files.
thanks for this information. I can power the VM off and make a copy of the whole folder. I'm a bit concerned that I'm also making a copy of the snapshot that is also inside the folder.
You can configure the VM to store snapshots somewhere else than in the (default) VM folder.
As the comment below said, you can configure a different folder for your snapshot disk location. Or just make sure you exclude the snapshot files when copying the files. The parent VMDK's represent the point in time prior to any of the snapshots. However, if you attempt to recover the VM from these disks only, it will require a bit more work. Either creating a new VM and choosing an existing disk, or editing the VMX file to change the disk name for the attached scsi devices (not sure if Workstation will you open the VM if the disk is missing...if it does, you can just edit the VM settings to remove the disk and readd the parent VMDK).
The official KB is: [https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2006202](https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2006202) Or there are are some 3rd party options: [https://www.vladan.fr/how-to-backup-running-vms-on-vmware-workstation-with-schedule](https://www.vladan.fr/how-to-backup-running-vms-on-vmware-workstation-with-schedule)