Working with Snapshots

Setting up a new virtual machine and running the installation process for an operating system takes time. We can save the state of a machine by taking a snapshot, and then we can revert the machine to that snapshot later. We can think of these like save points in a video game. This comes in handy if the machine’s configuration is damaged, if some software installation has messed things up, or if we want to start over without going through the entire installation process again. Snapshots are great for testing software in pristine environments too.

Creating a snapshot

To create our first snapshot, we navigate to the “Machine” menu in VirtualBox and select “Take Snapshot.” In the dialog that appears, we enter a name and a description for the snapshot so we can identify it later.