After Shrinking and Disc Cleanup HD still loses space

[cpat6d]

I deleted all my snapshots. I went through Shrinking using VMTools. I retrieved 35 gb using disk cleanup. As I use Fusion my Mac HD starts to lose hard drive space. I am not saving anything into Windows XP that wasn't there originally. Anyone know why?

[a_p_]

Take a look at the VM's settings and folder (vmwarevm bundle). Do you see new snapshots? Maybe Autoprotect is enabled (see http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1014509)

André

[WoodyZ]

In addition to what André said also keep in mind that by default Windows XP has System Restore turned on and can by default consume 12% of the drive for storage.  This means on a VMware Fusion 3.x default Windows XP Virtual Machine which sets the virtual hard disk to 40 GB that in addition to the space the files that comprise the OS install and installed programs and any User Data an additional 4.8 GB of space can be use up over time by Windows Automatic Updates setting Restore Points.  There will also be space used by the downloaded Windows updates and the archiving of the old files replaced by the updates.  Additionally the size of the pageful.sys file can grow to accommodate the use of Virtual Memory if/when necessary and if you have Hibernate enabled then the virtual hard disk will grow the amount of RAM assigned to the Virtual Machine.  These are just some of but not all the things that can cause the size of the virtual hard disk to grow and consume additional Host Hard Disk Space.

[cpat6d]

Would you recommend not having any snapshots? Or just turning off Autoprotect. I know the snapshots take up space but I assumed that  with each new one the older one was deleted since it does not appear in the list.

[a_p_]

IMO snapshots should only be used in case you do something you are not sure about. Snapshots are by no means a replacement for a backup. I usually run my VM's without any snapshots and backup the powered off VM's to an external disk (or network share).

André

[WoodyZ]

I personally would never ever under any circumstances use AutoProtect and this feature should have been named AutoDestruct!

As far as Snapshots are concerned I use them to manually create Linked Clones, which are not supported in VMware Fusion at the present time, and also take one just before an update to the Guest OS or before install an application I just want to test.  I then will either revert or delete a snapshot based on the circumstances.  As a general rule if I run a normal Virtual Machine with a snapshot it is for short periods of time and if all is well then delete it and continue one with a new one for a short period and repeat, etc.  None of this is a substitution in any way shape or form of not maintaining regular Off System User Data Backups (meaning Optical Media and or storing on RAID) and full backup of the Virtual Machine not through Time Machine as it is a know fact that Time Machine is not 100% reliable under all circumstances with Virtual Machine and often fails when restoring them.