virtualbox.org

For some reason, it has been decided to remove the "snapshot restore" checkbox at power off.
It has been in particular discussed here : viewtopic.php?f=15&t=106910

What ever @klaus may explain in his contributions to this thread, this was a very useful feature I used very frequently, but not in 100% of cases.
As a result, his proposal to create an extradata "GUI/DiscardStateOnPowerOff" is definitely NOT a solution, since it is effective in 100% of cases.
And (to be sure that users who are annoyed by the change cannot complain ?) the thread has been closed

To sum up,
- we had an efficient and useful option allowing users to do exactly what they want
- this option was clearly visible, and understandable by anyone (contrary to what @klaus explain in one of his replies...)
- this option has been replaced by something not visible and not flexible (and moreover not documented....)

Clearly, with this evolution, there surely will be users that will loose data involuntarily (while prevent this was the reason of the evolution, according to @klaus)

So, please, please, please, restore this option.
If you want to enhance the security (avoid data loss), make it always unchecked by default (and not "as it was last time it was used", as it was the case in VBox 6) to force user who want this snapshot restore to "actively" ask for it. Or add a confirmation box ("Are you sure ?"). Or whatever you want.
But once again, please restore ASAP this option.

I agree with you, there's enough posters about this change that the removal of the option checkbox should have been a choice in Preferences, rather than to take it away completely. Those who don't want it there could have it not be there, those who use it all the time can have it be there.

However, the devs may not have been the ones that caused this change. They have bosses, who probably drove the change because some of the paying customers of Oracle's pay-for hypervisor based on Virtualbox kept misunderstanding the checkbox. So the devs may not be the ones that can say.

The Bugtracker is the place for enhancement requests like this.

scottgus1 wrote: The Bugtracker is the place for enhancement requests like this.

I created one defect in the bug tracker.... but not really sure it will help

By removing an easy to access feature to restore to a known-good snapshot on exit, Oracle does make it a lot less convenient to use Virtualbox as a secure dev environment.
Users typically used this feature to revert back data they didn't want stored or tracked in an image upon exit unless they were doing things like system updates, in which case they would uncheck the box.

Based on the way some moderators have responded and closed down threads, it's pretty clear there is a different (and darker) motivation behind Oracle removing this feature besides errant user data loss, and it's not open for discussion.

jpbed wrote: Based on the way some moderators have responded and closed down threads

This is a users phpBB discussion forum. Moderators are not Oracle employees and don't know or care what dev motivations are.

If you want Oracle to care about your opinions, buy a support contract.

jpbed wrote:Based on the way some moderators have responded and closed down threads,

[Citation Needed]

You can post links to the moderator-closed discussions, so we can see if your assertion is true and if so why it is true.

At least these two threads are relative to this issue and are locked...

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=106910
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=107408

Thanks for the links.

The first link was locked because 7.0 came out of beta, so further discussion of the beta versions would not be useful. Discussion had to pass on to the official version outside the beta forum.

The second link was locked because many were wasting their fire by posting in a place where their voice wouldn't be heard. The Bugtracker is the place to ask the devs to change something, not here on the forum.

We're aren't opposed to discussion of changes or reverts, but this revert request basically is "Please put it back" and we on the forum can't do that.