What i do when creating a virtual machine.....
- Carefully select drive size, if doing lots of rollbacks do you need 20G free or just enough to test your apps?
- Install OS/windows etc...
- Get it to the state youe require.
- Turn off autoupdates if you dont want it to change in the future.
- remove old updates files/ clear temp files and recycle bin etc...
- Install tools you need for testing. notepad ++ is good.
- Install required browsers etc...
- Install vmware tools
- Change admin password to something memorable, but not insecure
- Set VMware tool to sync the clock with host.
- Add commonly used shortvuts to your desktop.
- If you'll edit lots of files, open them once in your favourite editor to ensure the apps are mapped to the tools you use.
- RUn your required apps at least once, so they get their initialisations out of the way
- Restrict resource hungy apps.eg: like SQL server(fix memory usage to prevent excessive hard drive growth)
- Clear out event logs
- Set up Internet explorer with trusted sites you use most often.
- Defrag the hard drive....reboot.... defrag again
- Shrink the hard drive using VMware tools
- Reboot
- Shutdown
- Ssy prep the VM if your coing to make many copies
- Take a snapshot