There is something common for most of the virtual machine managers. That is the ability to go back to earlier state like time-machine, which is supported by almost all of the virtual machine manager like VMware, VirtulaBox, HyperX etc. In VirtualBox this ability is called as snapshots.
A snapshot in virtual machine is the state of the virtual hard drive which is captured at the given time. A snapshot of VM state would remember the state of your virtual hard-drive (essentially all of your files, folders, installed apps, various changes to the apps etc..,). Later on, that state can be re-viewed or re-stored even if the files, folders or apps are changed in later point of time from saved time.
Yup..! Snapshot works like a time-machine of your VM, however it does it with the expense of some hard-disk space.
Fine.! How does it helps us in LabVIEW developments?
Well it helps us in many ways. Few of the ways are
At times, LabVIEW becomes cranky (keeps crashing) and you knew the moment that LabVIEW was working well without crashing. You can go back to that earlier state from the snapshots.Sometimes your Windows starts crashing (yeah.. that blue screen) for some unrecoverable issues. Going back to known working state using snapshot is easier.You want to test some new software or library before using in the mainstream of your application or in your development. You can snapshot the current state of the VM for safe fallback, just in-case that new software/library might harm your application or development.Usually while installing some major things, it would be best to take the snapshot of the current state so that going back to earlier state helps as fallback option.
Snapshot helpfulness is plenty and I just pointed few which I realized myself. Get your hands dirty with this ability of VM to explore and mould it into your needs 🙂
Ajay is a professional developer and architect of NI-LabVIEW applications with extreme interest in getting the hardware connected to LabVIEW and automating the stuff. Recently he is also putting his hands in NI-TestStand to get very dirty on it. He is also a good mentor for the various interns in his career. He is ready to help the people in techie roles.