A common question is how to quickly and easily backup a virtual machine under Virtual Server. There are a number of ways to do this - each of which have their own advantages and disadvantages.

Today I am going to show you how to have a simple script that 'save states' a virtual machine, copies the virtual machines files, and restores the virtual machine. The advantage of this approach is that it will work no matter what guest operating system you are running - however the disadvantages are that it will take the virtual machine offline for a period of time, and depending on the size of the virtual machine it may take a while to make the backup copy.