VBox no longer merges on Delete Snapshot?

[david.petersen]

Hi

I've been using Vbox since 3.x, and used to use Delete Snapshot to merge a child image with its parent. Currently I am running Vbox 4.1 on Windows 2008 x64. Now, if I delete a child snapshot, it just gets deleted. More logical, I guess, but I actually do want a merge. NB: I do not get prompted to merge or not.

I've looked through general and image options, and don't see anything to control this behavior. VBox help only mentions that using command line VBoxManage <delete> causes a merge.

Am I missing something?

Thanks,

David

[david.petersen]

Anybody?

[Perryg]

Sorry David. I just wanted to post and let you know that you are not being ignored. I simply don't use snapshots at all, and neither do many of the Mods.

If you don't get a reply I would consider asking the DEVs via irc://irc.freenode.org/vbox during normal business hours (Germany)

[mpack]

If you want to merge a child with its parent then you delete the parent, not the child. As far as I know it has been ever thus, only the wording of the dialog has occasionally been tweaked.

Stop thinking in terms of how the feature is implemented. A snapshot chain is a series of markers on a timeline. You have the ability to revert to any marked moment in time. If you no longer need to revert to a particular moment in time then that marker can be deleted - deleting a marker does not affect the data in the current state. Don't confuse yourself by visualizing how this is done.

[michaln]

If you want to merge a child with its parent then you delete the parent, not the child. As far as I know it has been ever thus, only the wording of the dialog has occasionally been tweaked.

Yes, that's correct. Deleting the current state (implied leaf snapshot) effectively reverts to the previous snapshot. Deleting a snapshot in the middle of a chain merges the changes into the nearest more recent snapshot/state. It's not terribly obvious or intuitive at first glance, but it's probably the only logical behavior.

Thinking of snapshots as markers along a path (with optional forks) is not a bad analogy. It's then fairly obvious what happens if a marker is pulled and one can't return to it anymore.

[david.petersen]

Thanks for the replies.