How to disable save state feature in Fusion 5

[mikecoza]

I would like to know how to disable the save state feature in vmware fusion 5. I have employees who need to access my vmware image 24x7 and need the image to be available all the time. The save state prevents this. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[WoodyZ · Accepted solution]

By default VMware Fusion suspends a Virtual Machine that is not explicitly shutdown from within the Guest OS, i.e. when closing the VMware Fusion.app while a Virtual Machine is running or clicking the close button on the Virtual Machine's display window.  This behavior can be changed in VMware Fusion's General Preferences

The other option is to set the following in the target Virtual Machine's .vmx configuration file.

suspend.disabled = "TRUE"

Have a look at: Editing the .vmx file for your VMware Fusion virtual machine (1014782)  

[mikecoza]

Thanks Woody, I'll try editing the VMX file. This will stop the virtual maschine from saving state when the image is idle, correct?

[WoodyZ]

In your subject you say "How to disable save state feature in Fusion 5" so I'm assuming you're referring to the Virtual Machine's ability to be Suspended which creates a .vmss file (the Virtual Machine Suspended State file) and that is the default action when VMware Fusion is first installed.  So either change the preference in the General section of VMware Fusion's Preferences or the other option is to add the option previously presented to the target Virtual Machine's .vmx configuration file.  This of course needs to be done while the Virtual Machine is shutdown, not suspended and VMware Fusion closed.

If this is not what you're talking about then you'll need to be more explicit and specific!

[mikecoza]

Thanks Woody, editiing the vmx file did the trick. Much appreciated! -Mike

[treee]

That sounds like a hibernate/standby feature in the OS you are running in the vm. I have a Windows vm at work where we have enabled the standby functionality via a policy for all Windows machines (and thus my vm as well). After some idling Windows will go into standby mode which looks like VMware Player (which is what I use at work) suspended the vm. I have seen this in VMware Fusion on my MBA with my Windows 8 vm as well. You can easily fix this by disabling these options (I only changed it for my Win8 vm; changed the energy saving profile to "high performance" which disables standby).

Btw, Fusion 5 does not support the saved state functionality (it's called Resume) in OS X that was introduced with Lion (Mountain Lion has it as well but iirc it is disabled by default). Fusion uses it's own suspend/resume functionality.

Message was edited by: treee