Prevent a VM from getting deleted

[Jaani]

Is there a way to lock a VM from getting deleted? If not, that would be a very helpful feature. - Thanks.

[socratis]

1. I separated your post from the "Feature request: Tabbed interface for VMs". Obviously your message has absolutely nothing to do with that discussion, wouldn't you agree? I also changed the subject to capture the essence of your question. Otherwise people won't notice it, will they?
2. Can you think of a way to have read-write access to a document (spreadsheet, presentation, picture, etc.) that you can edit and change but cannot delete? Does any Office application or Image manipulation program let you do that?
3. VirtualBox when you delete a VM asks you, so you've got to verify your actions, it's not an accidental delete. Even then, the default is "Cancel". You can then choose to "Remove only" which removes the VM from the list of known VMs without deleting the files (which allows you to re-add it the VM you made a mistake), or "Delete all files" which is obvious what it's doing.
4. Even if VirtualBox provided such a feature, what could prevent the user from deleting it from Explorer/Finder/Whatever? Remember that you cannot have read-only VM files.
5. Don't you think that some responsibility should lie with the end user?
6. What did you have in mind when you made the suggestion? Maybe there is another way to achieve what you want to do.

[mpack]

Perhaps making backups is the solution to this problem - and many others.