[tinkerman]

I have setup a VM with Windows 7 64- bit and gave 4 cores and 4 GB RAM. Used space is about 68 GB.

My VM is 40.4GB. You can ‘reclaim’ a large portion of your host system's disk space by using a couple of methods.
http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum/sho...ht=sdelete

[ Quick Guide ]
1. First refer to the link above for general background info, and download SDelete.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysin...97443.aspx

2. In the VM (in operation), delete any and all non-essential files, such as installation files and files that can be deleted via ‘Disk Cleanup’ under the VM’s C: drive Properties.
3. Defragment the VM’s C: drive.

4. In Windows ‘Host OS’(NOT the VM’s ‘Guest OS’) > Control Panel > User Accounts:
a. Make sure the account is set to an Administrator account.
b. Change User Account Control settings(in Windows 7) > lower the setting fully down to 'Never notify', and REBOOT. This is necessary for the next step to work.

5. ‘Mount’ the Rheingold VM's XXXX.vmdk onto the Windows ‘Host OS’. If you have VMware Workstation installed, you can just right click the XXXX.vmdk file and in the drop down menu select 'Map Virtual Disk'. (If you are not using VMware Workstation, then you can use a utility such as ‘Disk Mount’ or similar utility)

6. In the ‘Map Virtual Disk’ pop up, DESELECT(UNCHECK) 'Open file in read-only mode (recommended)'. Click OK. Shortly afterward you will be able to see the virtual disk mounted onto the host system through the explorer window as drive ‘Z:’ or whichever drive letter was selected in the mounting process. With the vmdk mounted in the host OS as a drive, now we can proceed to use SDelete to ‘zero’(initialize) the dead disk space in the XXXXX.vmdk to reclaim that space.

[SDelete – ‘Zero’(Initialize/Reclaim) Free Disk Space]
7. Open the command window - Start > type "cmd" in the search window

8. In the command window, type the directory in which SDelete is located followed by the necessary command(“sdelete.exe -z:-c Z:”) such as:
C:\Users\(My Windows Account Name)\Downloads\SDelete(folder)\sdelete.exe -z:-c Z:

If you've mounted the vmdk as disk 'Y:' for example, then the last portion of the command line should reflect such drive letter designation.

SDelete will proceed to ‘zapp’ any free space on the XXXXX.vmdk that has not yet been ‘zeroed’(initialized). A XX%(percentage) completed indicator will show in the command window during the process, followed by a comment that the drive has been ‘zapped’ when completed.


9. Once the SDelete process is completed, in Explorer, right click the XXXX.vmdk(drive Z: for example), and in the drop down menu click ‘Disconnect Virtual Disk’.

[VMware Workstation Compact Feature – Reduce(Compact) VM Size]
10. Open the VM, but do NOT Power ON or Start Up Guest yet.
11. In the left side column under ‘Devices’, click ‘Hard Disk’.
12. In the pop up ‘Virtual Machine Settings’ under the ‘Hardware’ tab, click ‘Hard Disk’.
13. On the right side under ‘Disk information’, click ‘Utilities’ > ‘Compact’. This will now ‘compact’ the data within the XXXXX.vmdk, taking into account the ‘zeroed’(initialized) space, and reduce the disk space taken up by the VM on the ‘Host OS’ as well as reduce the size of the VM itself. This will significantly reduce the size of the VM.

Cheers.