I tried the final version of InVirtus VM Optimizer 2.0 and the only thing that I can say is that it really rocks!!!
You can read the review of the prerelease version here with an example of compaction of Windows 2003 SP1.
VM Optimizer 2.0 is a software that can optimize Microsoft (Virtual PC and Virtual Server) and VMware (Workstation and GSX Server) virtual machines, with Windows guest OS (from Win2K to Windows Server 2003 – Invirtus says Vista support will be available when Vista is released by Microsoft).
It can reduce the virtual harddisk size, and can optimize the guest OS to run smooth inside a VM.
The installation is straightforward, as you can see here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.
To test it I used Virtual PC 2004 SP1, with an existing VM with Windows XP SP2 plus some other little utility in it.
The original vhd was a 3.84Gb file compressed with NTFS (Size on disk was 2.51Gb).
To start the optimization process I mounted the "InVirtusVMOptimizer.iso" from the CD menu of VPC, then I double clicked the CD drive inside the VM.
After a splash screen the program starts with a screen that informs that it's better to backup the VM files on the host OS
In the next screen the software tries to identify the virtualization product (VMWare or Microsoft) and the guest OS.
In every case that I tried the software has identified the right combination every time.
Then there is the first step of the optimization. It's completely automatic.
At the end of the first step, the Display Properties are displayed on the screen, with the advice to set 16 bit colors and full hardware accelleration.
After that, the program waits for the ok to restart the system.
The system is restarted, and when the user logs on again, the second step is ready to finish the optimization.
In this step, the disk is cleaned, defragmented and filled with zeros, ready for the final step with Virtual Disk Wizard.
During this step there is an optional step where the user can use Disk Cleanup to free more space on the disk.
In my case the cleanup was not necessary, because the HD was already clean, but I run it to be sure that nothing extra was on the disk.
After the cleanup, the disk is optimized, defragmented, and filled with zeros.
At that point I turned off the VM, and then I compacted the Virtual HardDisk with the Virtual Disk Wizard.
The final result is:
I gained 2,99Gb of disk space... really impressive!
To compare the results with the prerelease version, with the original vhd and with a vhd that I compacted manually (I optimized it manually, cleaned, defragged and filled with zeros using standard techniques) they are shown below:
The results are clear I think. I really like this software.
As you can see the results are also better than the prerelease version, much better than the manual way and incredibly better than the original situation.
I'm really amazed of this product, everything is automatic, guided step-by-step, and the results are incredible.
I optimized other VMs, everytime with impressive results. They were faster and smaller than before, and the time that I gain when I need to backup, copy or move them is priceless.
If you want to try the final version, you can go here.