Hyper-V Manager: Scheduled Snapshot and Checkpoint Creation

Unfortunately Hyper-V Manager doesn’t provide an automatic, scheduled creation of snapshots aka checkpoints.

However, it’s a great thing to add to your VMs and it can be done with just one command and the Windows Task Scheduler:

You could either use  a fixed name for the snapshot / checkpoint or generate one automatically.

The PowerShell script syntax is:
 Checkpoint-VM -Name Test -SnapshotName mySnapshotName

OR, if you want the date in the snapshot name:
 Checkpoint-VM -Name Test -SnapshotName "Daily Snapshot $((Get-Date).toshortdatestring())"

Simply store that command in a .ps1 and schedule it in the Task Manager:

1. Press the Windows logo key + R, type taskschd.msc and press Enter.
2. On the Actions panel, click Create Basic Task
3. Go through the steps
4. When prompted, select “Start a program” as the task’s action, and click Next.
5. In the textbox labeled “Program/script”, enter powershell.exe
6. In the textbox labeled “Add Arguments”, enter the full path to the script in between quotation marks.
7. Click Next.
8. Click Finish.

For more ideas on how to run the PowerShell script visit: https://www.udemy.com/blog/run-powershell-script/

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