[Feature removed] No snapshot restore on power off any more?

[birdie]

All the previous versions of VirtualBox allowed to restore to the previous snapshot on Power Off.

VirtualBox 7.0 does not offer this feature. Is this intentional? Looks like a bug.

The OS on the screen was created in an older VirtualBox version. I could restore to the previous snapshot in version 6.1.36.

[birdie]

Still broken/missing in Beta 2.

[okcrum]

Save/restore VM works fine for me, although slowly, from BETA2 running Windows 11 under Ubuntu 22.04. I would not necessarily expect VirtualBox 7 to be able to restore saved snapshots from earlier versions.

Chuck

[birdie]

Save/restore VM works fine for me, although slowly, from BETA2 running Windows 11 under Ubuntu 22.04. I would not necessarily expect VirtualBox 7 to be able to restore saved snapshots from earlier versions.

Chuck

In previous VBox versions you could restore from the VM power off menu.

This feature is gone in VBox 7. I don't understand what you're talking about.

[okcrum]

In previous VBox versions you could restore from the VM power off menu.

This feature is gone in VBox 7. I don't understand what you're talking about.

Selecting START on the SAVED VM from Virtualbox Snapshot menu or clicking tthe VM's desktop shortcut both restore the snapshot. Are you unable to do either of these in BETA2? If not, what is your actual complaint? Is it that a redundant menu choice has been removed?

EDIT: Note the state of VM is Paused, not Saved, in your screenshot. You need to uncheck Pause to resume in that case.

[birdie]

In previous VBox versions you could restore from the VM power off menu.

This feature is gone in VBox 7. I don't understand what you're talking about.

Selecting START on the SAVED VM from Virtualbox Snapshot menu or clicking tthe VM's desktop shortcut both restore the snapshot. Are you unable to do either of these in BETA2? If not, what is your actual complaint? Is it that a redundant menu choice has been removed?

EDIT: Note the state of VM is Paused, not Saved, in your screenshot. You need to uncheck Pause to resume in that case.

This is what I had in VBox 5 and 6:

quick-restore-snapshot-virtualbox.png (18.7 KiB) Viewed 22256 times

This feature is gone in VBox 7.

[mpack]

Maybe you don't speak English I don't know.

Maybe that is abuse, I don't know. If it is then please cut it out.

[birdie]

Maybe you don't speak English I don't know.

Maybe that is abuse, I don't know. If it is then please cut it out.

The person definitely doesn't understand what I'm talking about - what can I say? I've edited the message if that's impolite. I didn't mean it to be an insult, I was curious.

[okcrum]

The person definitely doesn't understand what I'm talking about - what can I say? I've edited the message if that's impolite. I didn't mean it to be an insult, I was curious.

No offense taken. I understand perfectly. You're reporting a bug about a redundant menu choice that has been removed.

[birdie]

The person definitely doesn't understand what I'm talking about - what can I say? I've edited the message if that's impolite. I didn't mean it to be an insult, I was curious.

No offense taken. I understand perfectly. You're reporting a bug about a redundant menu choice that has been removed.

That's not a menu, it's a pop-up.

It's not redundant. Now instead of reverting to the previous snapshot I first have to power off the guest and then revert to the snapshot which is super inconvenient.

I use most of my VMs this way. I don't want/need to save their state after finishing working with them.

[klaus]

It is not a bug in the usual sense. There was a discussion with the GUI team on this topic during work on VirtualBox 7, and the feature was considered a problematic feature (there were complaints about data loss by users who didn't realize that they had the checkbox ticked previously - the state of it was remembered as you probably know). Therefore it was removed completely to make the use of VirtualBox more safe.

We know that any such change (no matter what we do) will make someone have to change his workflow. In this case needing to use the "snapshots" tool (or just to mention it: start the GUI from command line with option --restore-current).

[birdie]

It is not a bug in the usual sense. There was a discussion with the GUI team on this topic during work on VirtualBox 7, and the feature was considered a problematic feature (there were complaints about data loss by users who didn't realize that they had the checkbox ticked previously - the state of it was remembered as you probably know). Therefore it was removed completely to make the use of VirtualBox more safe.

We know that any such change (no matter what we do) will make someone have to change his workflow. In this case needing to use the "snapshots" tool (or just to mention it: start the GUI from command line with option --restore-current).

Can you make this feature a hidden option in VirtualBox.xml please? Something like

Code: Select all

ExtraDataItem name="GUI/ShowSnapshotUIOnPowerOff" value="true"/>

It's like a few extra lines of code.

Let those who are confused deal with snapshots, many would like it back.

[klaus]

Let's not get into arguments about the numbers of users who actually use this feature actively (we don't have such information, and I don't think you have it either).

We don't have exactly the extradata flag you're hinting at. The checkbox has been removed from the codebase. But you can provide the flag which the checkbox handled through extradata: set "GUI/DiscardStateOnPowerOff" to 1 (works for specific VM or globally). Use VBoxManage for that, don't edit the .vbox settings file directly. And keep in mind that whatever you set will be used on every VM poweroff through the GUI dialog (you can remove the extradata key before powering off if necessary).

[birdie]

Let's not get into arguments about the numbers of users who actually use this feature actively (we don't have such information, and I don't think you have it either).

We don't have exactly the extradata flag you're hinting at. The checkbox has been removed from the codebase. But you can provide the flag which the checkbox handled through extradata: set "GUI/DiscardStateOnPowerOff" to 1 (works for specific VM or globally). Use VBoxManage for that, don't edit the .vbox settings file directly. And keep in mind that whatever you set will be used on every VM poweroff through the GUI dialog (you can remove the extradata key before powering off if necessary).

Understood, that's sad to hear What was zero clicks away previously, now requires multiple actions.

You could mention this in the changelog, so that people didn't pester you with questions.

[JustinH]

This is sad. I use this functionality every day. It is so efficient.