To reduce the size of the vmdk-files you want to use shrink.

Compact only sorts the graintables but has no effect on size.

If shrink is disabled check:

if one of the vmdks has the nonpersistant flag set

if one of your vmdks is a physical disk

if you have snapshots

Best popst your vmx-file then we can check for you




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VMX-parameters- WS FAQ -[ MOAcd|http://sanbarrow.com/moa241.html] - VMDK-Handbook

use the attach function




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VMX-parameters- WS FAQ -[ MOAcd|http://sanbarrow.com/moa241.html] - VMDK-Handbook

the vmx-file is ok

can you post the file  "Windows XP Mode.vmdk" ?




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VMX-parameters- WS FAQ -[ MOAcd|http://sanbarrow.com/moa241.html] - VMDK-Handbook

Ok - that answers that question ...

have a look at your vmx-file - it has this entry:

xpmode.enabled = "TRUE"

please set that to "false" and try again




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VMX-parameters- WS FAQ -[ MOAcd|http://sanbarrow.com/moa241.html] - VMDK-Handbook

sorry - I have no more ideas




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VMX-parameters- WS FAQ -[ MOAcd|http://sanbarrow.com/moa241.html] - VMDK-Handbook

avoelp wrote:

 

What is the difference between compacting (from the Player's VM Settings menu) and shrinking (from the VMware Tools menu) a virtual disk?

 

 

I use Player 3.1 with a Windows XP Mode VM under Wiondows 7 64-bit. In this case, neither shrinking nor compacting appears to work:

 

• On the Shrink tab of VMware Tools there is only a message that shrinking has been deactivated for this machine.

 

• When I try to compact the machine from the Player's Hardware -> Utilities tab the compacting process starts but then aborts after a few seconds, showing the error message "One of the parameters supplied is invalid" (I am not aware of any parameters that can be supplied here ...).

 

Any suggestions?

Hello!

I have same problem.

>The shrink feature is not enabled for a virtual machine if any of its virtual disks are

>* • Preallocated when created

>* • Not used in independent-persistent mode

>* • Legacy disks that are not in persistent mode

>* • Booted as independent disks

I have managed to do this, or at least work around the problem.

I had the same issue with an XP Mode VM. I made a full clone of it - which was just as big. But I was allowed to shrink that successfully so I simply deleted the original (well, actually I moved it off to a backup disk just in case anything went wrong.)

I did a comparison of the VM configuration files in the original and the clone:

• The .vmsd file of the original contained some entries although I had deleted all snapshots, The clone version was empty. Emptying the original to match the clone did not fix the shrink issue.
  
• The .vmxd had a different VM id for the clone - which seems sensible - otherwise it was the same (though in a slighlty different order.) I did not try setting the orginal to match the clone.
  
• The clone .vmx file had four extra entries at the end, three of which were empty parameters. One specified the new name for the nvram file. The other differences were the bios uuid, the ethernet address and the vdmk file name. I renamed the original nvram file to match that used by the clone (the content of the files was identical) and copied across the .vmx file changes (except the changed vdmk file name). The original VM still worked - but continued to have the shrink option disabled.
  

So I am pretty sure that it is something in the .vdmk file that prevent use of shrink. Making a clone seems a reasonably easy work around if you have the disk space.

The Compact disk option also works without error on the clone, but not on the original.

VMWare Workstation 7.1.4 - though the VM was created in an earlier version.

Eric

So I am pretty sure that it is something in the .vdmk file that prevent use of shrink.

A WinXP Mode VM is a Linked Clone and that is why you cannot shrink or compact it unless you create a Full Clone of it.

Thanks for the explanation - I had not realised that it was a clever linked clone of a non-VMware parent. I guess the fact that it is a rather non-standard linked clone may explain why the Compact option fails when it normally works on a linked clone (though its effect is probably not what most people are trying to achieve.)

A new XPMode import is only about 70 MB, but a full clone of that is well over 1 GB. So there is no point in doing a full clone of a machine to save less than 1 GB of space with shrink. In my case it save 15 GB so it was helpful.

Eric