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I have read a discussion about musthave Windows software. User esabine addend a link to Scott Hanselman's tools list. One of the tools Scott was writing about was an optimizer tool for VM’s. - Invirtus VM Optimizer for 70 USD. However, Invirtus is not in the market anymore, and was acquired by Quest and Vizioncore. The prices went up 4 times (to about 300 USD).

Does anyone knows good VM optimizer tool, that will work with VMWare Workstation?

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+1 for good question. Invirtus VM Optimizer was great for optimizing VM footprint - it would do many things that out-of-the-box tools didn't do, like nuke all the Windows help files (who needs those in a barebones VM?) Since I haven't been able to use it in forever, I'm forgetting some of the other nice features that it used to have. :( – Yoopergeek Aug 21 '09 at 16:05
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VMware does have built in tools for shrinking Virtual Disks.

And you can also use the VMware Virtual Disk Manager to do this.

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Thanks, it really worked well! – smok1 Aug 29 '09 at 11:55
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up vote 3 down vote

A lot of supposed optimizers just make it easier to remove unnecessary software/services from Windows--items that can be removed manually (for free) by the user.

I agree with Dave Webb's suggestion for using VMWare's built-in tools. In addition, I keep a bare-bones image (whether it's XP, Vista, or Windows 7) with as much of the bloat uninstalled/disabled. I'll use the bare-bones image as a base for subsequent clones.

The biggest optimization IMHO is ensuring that your VM isn't fragmented.

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