How to Create and Delete Hyper-V Checkpoints / Snapshots

Checkpoints (see this article for a definition) can be useful for short-term testing when you need a quick way to revert a Hyper-V virtual machine to its prior state, for example, before updating Windows or installing software.

To create and delete checkpoints (aka. snapshots in older versions of Windows Server and Hyper-V), you can issue the following commands from the command line.

To run the commands you’ll need to invoke PowerShell, which resides in the folder:

%systemdrive%\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0

The scripts below are ready to copy and paste to your batch files (or into BackupChain if need be), for whatever purpose you need them:

Creating Hyper-V Checkpoints / Snapshots

The actual PowerShell command for creating a checkpoint is:

Checkpoint-VM -Name w7 -SnapshotName WorkingSystem

Where “w7” is the virtual machine name and “WorkingSystem” is the desired checkpoint name.

To package the whole thing into a one-liner that can be launched from the command prompt, or from inside a batch file, we invoke PowerShell as follows:

%systemdrive%\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell -command "Checkpoint-VM -Name w7 -SnapshotName testsnapshotname"

In order to remotely create a checkpoint for VM “w7” on server “MyHyperVHostName”, we can run the command as follows:

%systemdrive%\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell -command "Get-VM W7 –ComputerName MyHyperVHostName | Checkpoint-VM"

Deleting Hyper-V Checkpoints / Snapshots

The command to delete Hyper-V checkpoints is similar but offers more options:

%systemdrive%\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell -command "Get-VM w7 | Remove-VMSnapshot –Name testsnapshotname"

Other variations are possible, too, such as deleting all checkpoints whose names begin with a certain phrase:

%systemdrive%\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell -command "Get-VM w7 | Remove-VMSnapshot –Name OldSnapshotName*"

And even slicker is the following command, which deletes snapshots of a certain age, here 30 days:

%systemdrive%\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell -command "Get-VMSnapshot -VMName w7| Where-Object {$_.CreationTime -lt (Get-Date).AddDays(-30) } | Remove-VMSnapshot"

Backing up VMs with Checkpoints in Hyper-V

As mentioned by Microsoft, when it comes to Hyper V backup, “Checkpoints Are Not Intended for Backup”: (https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/Cc956044.aspx)

In order to have your important Hyper-V VMs backed up and protected, use BackupChain Backup Software. It handles and restores checkpoints automatically, and VMs may also be restored as clones, side-by-side with the original VM without interference.

You may also be interested in

Hyper-V NAS Backup on Synology, Qnap, Netgear, Drobo, Buffalo

Hyper-V Fixed Disk Backup Considerations

Hyper-V Backup Pass-through Disk Considerations

Dynamic Disk Hyper-V Backup Considerations

USB Disk Hyper-V Backup Considerations

Pros and Cons of Deduplication Technologies, VHDX, Hyper-V