I've created a Win 7 VM and it is working well. When I tried to backup the VM, I noticed, to my dismay, that although I've apportioned 80 GB to the Windows hard drive, the .pvm file is a whopping 133 GB. Drilling further into the .pvm file, and showing Package Contents of the Windows 7.hdd file, I see many Windows. hds files, some from months ago and some very large - 67 GB, or more. What's the deal with those files and is it safe to delete some of the older ones? Thanks
No, it's not safe to delete those files. You're likely using the snapshots feature, merge snapshots if you don't require to roll back to a previous snapshot and need to reclaim back some space.
Thanks for the advice. How do I merge the snapshots. My intent is to reduce the file size of the .pvm.
You can also compress the VM (deletes unused space). Working with snapshots: http://kb.parallels.com/en/5691 You merge snapshots by deleting intermediate ones.
Trying to take your advice and delete older snapshots, I get an error message saying that configuration file specified is invalid and asking me to try another file. Pretty much all of the snapshots generate the same error when I try to delete them using the Manage Snapshots function. Does that mean that none of them are any good anyway? Is there another way that I can delete them? In hindsight, it seems that those snapshot only account for 1GB or so. My main objective would be to shrink the VM file which has ballooned to a whopping 133 GB.
