Then, on the VM side of things, you have a large .vmdk file for each VM you have created. These can be drag/dropped to restore the entire image if necessary (complete hard drive failure), but you also have the option of making and restoring snapshots of the VMs. The VMWare Snapshot Manager can be configured to 'AutoProtect' your VMs. This just means it will automatically make snapshots on a schedule defined by you.
If you attempt to boot one of your VMs and it fails, restore a snapshot. The snapshots are stored in smaller .vmdk files, just like the main VM. They too can be drag/dropped to/from external storage if you wish.
Since the name of the game here is 'virtualization', your Windows VM is also networked via a virtual network interface. This virtual network interface is extremely cool, for several reasons. First, the virtual net interface is under the control of the hypervisor, so your Windows OS simply cannot perform any network communications without your permission. Second, the virtual network you configure between the Linux host and the virtual machine is all handled in RAM - -and is extremely fast when compared to packets traversing a wire.
I have shared folders on both my Win7 VM, and on the Linux host. Either OS can mount the shares of the other, so it's seamless to move files between the two systems.
And now we get the the whole reason I posted on this thread in the first place... Since the Win7 VM is attached to the Linux host via a virtual network, the Win7 VM can communicate with nothing but the Linux host. It's like there is a dedicated network cable between the host and VM which carries only their mutual traffic. My Linux host and other VMs have full access to the Internet, but the Win7 VM is completely isolated on a tiny virtual network. If Microsoft want to 'upgrade' my Win7 to Win10, they're going to have to do it in person!
Finally, that shared folder on the Linux host is also available to other systems on my LAN. This provides the Win7 VM with the ability to share files with any other system on the LAN, despite the fact that it is not connected to the LAN itself.
[[My Linux host and other VMs have full access to the Internet, but the Win7 VM is completely isolated on a tiny virtual network. If Microsoft want to ‘upgrade’ my Win7 to Win10, they’re going to have to do it in person! ]]
That is very interesting- how would you go about making sure the windows VM can’t access the internet? And would there be a way to only allow it to do so manually? (IE: manually click a ‘connect to internet’ button or whatever? I do not run automatic updates so I wouldn’t be worried about it updating, and I selectively choose which updates I want when I do update to avoid all the windows 10 junk kb updates))
The shared folders- is that done through the VM software? Or do you have to set it up in Linux with command line instructions?
I’m very intrigued with a Linux host windows VM but it’s a huge step- and a bit unnerving, not knowing too much about it all- I’m looking at paragon software which can migrate my windows to VMware, virtual box or whatever- all pretty easily- and it too claims it makes the backups that aren’t hardware dependent-
My computer is a monster- 16 gig ram, it’s an hpe 790t which is like 12 cores or something like that- extreme version- I have run Linux in virtual machine (VMware player) before on this machine- some ran quick, smooth- other flavors not as smooth- had some versions freeze up- had to hard boot out of it (not sure if there’s a keyboard command line that can be done to unfreeze Linux?)
The only thing I didn’t like about virtual boxes is that I couldn’t get them to run full screen- , and the mouse would act wonky sometimes in it- seemed like there were a few minor glitches- but no big deal overall-
I think what I might do is, buy a new hard-drive, install Linux on it- plop in the VM windows 7 that I copy over from existing system, and just give it a try- Hard-drives are pretty cheap these days- About $100 or so for 1.5 terabyte drive- $70 or so for the cheaper ones- I’ll have to figure out though how to get the virtual windows copy onto new hard-drive- My C drive is like 340 gigs of programs and files- etc- I might be able to put the VM windows file on my usb drive I suppose-
I have a feeling that my second hard-drive is starting to go on me- when I click the link to open it, it is now making a sound it didn’t used to- and once the file showed empty- I hope it’s not my main drive that is going though lol- like you say- I always have the duplicated disk to fall back on, and I’ll have my current disk to reinstall if I try the Linux and VM windows on a new drive (maybe I’ll duplicate my current drive onto the new one, and use current one for the experimenting- probably a better choice)
Well- I’ve bugged you enough on this- I do thank you for the time and answers- I’m liking what I see with the paragon software for backups and restore and for virtualizing too- I might try the demo of that soon-