Win 7 PVM being modified with every launch of Parallels

Hi, I am running Parallels Desktop Build 7.0.15095 (Revision 768120; June 4, 2012) on Mac OX 10.7.4 (Lion)
Am running Windows 7 in the virtual machine.

Every time I launch Parallels, the Windows 7.pvm file shows that it has been modified. Is this expected behavior? The file is 24GB and as a result is filling up my TimeMachine backups. Would prefer not to exclude the file from TimeMachine because if I have to do a total restore, it would be nice to have the virtual machine come back as part of the restore.

Thanks

 

Answer: Yes, Windows modifies its filesystem (that file) every time it boots.

Workaround: Once you have Windows configured the way you want it, make a snapshot. After the initial backup of the main pvm file, Time Machine will then back up the much smaller snapshot backing file rather than the big file. Once your snapshot backing file starts getting big enough to be a backup problem merge it back in (delete the snapshot) and then make a new snapshot.

Disclaimer: I haven't tested this with Parallels (I turn off Time Machine backups and do manual backups of my pvm's from time to time), but it worked this way under VMware Fusion.

 

Thanks. I set up TM to exclude that file (since I have earlier copies of it, and my Windows install is stable and not changing). Hopefully that will do the trick!