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<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<!DOCTYPE topic PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DITA Topic//EN" "topic.dtd">
<topic xml:lang="en-us" id="intro-save-machine-state">
<title>Saving the State of the Machine</title>
<body>
<p>
When you click on the <b outputclass="bold">Close</b>
button of your virtual machine window, at the top right of the
window, just like you would close any other window on your
system, Oracle VM VirtualBox asks you whether you want to save or
power off the VM. As a shortcut, you can also press
<b outputclass="bold">Host key + Q</b>.
</p>
<fig id="fig-vm-close">
<title>Closing Down a Virtual Machine</title>
<image href="images/vm-close.png" width="10cm" placement="break"/>
</fig>
<p>
The difference between the three options is crucial. They mean
the following:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><b outputclass="bold">Save the machine state:</b>
With this option, Oracle VM VirtualBox
<i>freezes</i> the virtual machine by
completely saving its state to your local disk.
</p>
<p>
When you start the VM again later, you will find that the VM
continues exactly where it was left off. All your programs
will still be open, and your computer resumes operation.
Saving the state of a virtual machine is thus in some ways
similar to suspending a laptop computer by closing its lid.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b outputclass="bold">Send the shutdown signal.</b>
This will send an ACPI shutdown signal to the virtual
machine, which has the same effect as if you had pressed the
power button on a real computer. This should trigger a
proper shutdown mechanism from within the VM.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b outputclass="bold">Power off the machine:</b> With
this option, Oracle VM VirtualBox also stops running the virtual
machine, but <i>without</i> saving its state.
</p>
<note type="attention">
<p>
This is equivalent to pulling the power plug on a real
computer without shutting it down properly. If you start
the machine again after powering it off, your OS will have
to reboot completely and may begin a lengthy check of its
virtual system disks. As a result, this should not
normally be done, since it can potentially cause data loss
or an inconsistent state of the guest system on disk.
</p>
</note>
<p>
As an exception, if your virtual machine has any snapshots,
see <xref href="snapshots.dita#snapshots"/>, you can use this option to
quickly <b outputclass="bold">restore the current
snapshot</b> of the virtual machine. In that case,
powering off the machine will discard the current state and
any changes made since the previous snapshot was taken will
be lost.
</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>
The <b outputclass="bold">Discard</b> button in the
VirtualBox Manager window discards a virtual machine's saved state. This
has the same effect as powering it off, and the same warnings
apply.
</p>
</body>
</topic>
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