How long should it take to delete a snapshot?

It is normal, please be aware that Snapshots are binary difference, and applying them takes time
Please note, Snapshots are using for keeping different stages not for backup purpose , if you want backup, please use clone, or simply copy pvm file

 

Ok. It finally finished. To delete 1 snapshot took just over 3 hours! I don't know if this is useful since I was expecting to be able to freely create and delete these things. In addition, my computer is completely unusable during this time.
I hope Parallels can work on this and make this a snappy (pardon the pun) process.

Anyway, at least it did eventually finish. So in future, I will either remember to delete snapshots overnite, or make a backup copy of the whole vm.

Thanks.

 

Some question on that to the Parallels team:

1) Would you agree that workings of removing snapshots or compressing vm hard drives needs to be made much more transparent in order to let the user know a) everthing works correctly and b) to give an estimate of time on how long the procedure is going to take?

2) How would you compare these three approaches on keeping different versions: a) snapshot management of the Parallels application, b) using TrueImage - especially since it part of v4-bundle, c) simply making manual backups of the pvm file. Do you have clear recommendations on that? I would think that all of them a somewhat similar but still competing, and apart from the fact that snapshots might uses less disc space on the guest system, I would not know how to tell them apart.

 

I am answering your second question:
-Snapshots are for keeping different stages
Let say I develop application and I need to test it on Windows XP Service Pack 1, Service pack2, Service pack 3
Snapshots are saving space to me - I have only one VM with 3 snapshots
- TrueImage is for using inside VM, let us say for Linux, Windows with several partitions
- Simple copy for virtual machine is the true VM backup in addition to clone option added in Parallels Desktop version 4

 

About 1 st part I submitted feature request to developers

 

Thank you all for clarifying things. I was using snapshots for safety when a simple copy of the pvm file is more appropriate for my purposes. I do agree that an expectation of the time for deletion might prevent people from having problems. When something takes much longer than you think it should, the temptation is strong to do something like kill the process, which has a good chance of screwing something else up.

Thanks again. All in all, I am very satisfied with Parallels.

 

Guys, I am using Parallels 6, got in this morning and (by himself) the VM is in this "Windows Vista: Deleting Snapshot..." state. It has been like that all morning, I don't know for how long before I woke up it has been this way. This happened once before and someone helped me with very long steps to get out of that (force Quit and restart was bringing me to the same state). Years have passed and two major versions released, and this is still happening. And I did _nothing_, it got in this state by itself.
Parallels is really cook, works 99.9% of the time and the integration with the Mac is cool. The TimeMachine backup let me out of a tight spot once. But if I am unable to use the VM for who knows how long (assuming this will ever finish) or if I am at risk of losing the VM contents then all become moot :-(
How can I avoid this situation, and more important at the moment, how do I get out of this?

 

So here is my suggestion - Start Parallels, this virtual machine should be still in "deleting snapshots' state - go to activity monitor, find prl_vm_app process and kill it. Restart the VM.
If it is still in the sam state - fo the following:
Open Terminal,

1. Stop Parallels Service using the following command:
sudo launchctl stop com.parallels.desktop.launchdaemon


2. And then start it again using:
sudo launchctl start com.parallels.desktop.launchdaemon

In order to delete snapshots use this KB:http://kb.parallels.com/en/9165

 

Many thanks! All I had to do was to kill prl_vm_app (your suggested first step). This time It let me start my VM
afterwards. I did not have to do the other steps.