Cloning a Virtual Machine

Creating Clones -Cloning a Virtual Machine

The Clone Virtual Machine wizard guides you through the process of making a clone. You do not need to locate and manually copy the parent virtual machine files. The Clone Virtual Machine wizard automatically creates a new MAC address and other unique identifiers for the clone.

To create a clone using the Clone Virtual Machine wizard
If you want to make a linked clone, defragment the guest operating system’s drives before creating the linked clone. Use the tools in the guest operating system to run a defragmentation utility.

• Power off the virtual machine that you want to clone. You cannot create a clone from a virtual machine that is powered on or suspended.
• Click the name of a virtual machine you want to clone in the Favorites list or click the tab of a virtual machine in the summary window.
• From the Workstation menu bar, choose VM>Clone to open the Clone Virtual Machine wizard.
• On the Welcome page, click Next.
• On the Clone Source page, select the state of the parent from which you want to create a clone and click Next.
• You can choose to create a clone from:
• The parent’s current state. Workstation creates a snapshot of the virtual machine before cloning it.
• Any snapshot of the parent. Select the snapshot name from a drop‐down menu of existing snapshots.
• On the Clone Type page, specify whether you want to create a linked clone or a full clone and click Next.
• On the Name of the New Virtual Machine page, enter a name and a path for the cloned virtual machine and click Finish.
• The default name and path are based on the original virtual machine name and location. You can type a new entry for name and path, or browse to a directory for the clone files.
• The Clone Virtual Machine wizard displays a status page. A full clone can take many minutes to create, depending on the size of the virtual disk that is being duplicated.
• Click done to exit the Clone Virtual Machine wizard.