Changes

* Shrinking reduces the amount of space a virtual disk currently occupies on the host system. It does not reduce the size of the disk as far as any guest operating systems using the disk are concerned. When more disk space is needed by a guest, VMware increases the size of the virtual disk image to accommodate the guest. This process is repeated in increments as more space is needed until the maximum specified virtual disk size is reached.

== Shrinking a Virtual Disk from the Command Line ==

To shrink the disk, select the ''Shrink'' tab of the VMware Tools Control Panel. Within the ''Shrink'' page, select the disk and click on the ''Shrink'' button. A number of confirmation dialogs will be displayed seeking confirmation that the size of the disk is to be reduced. Once confirmation has been received, VMware Server will reclaim unused space on the disk and reduce the size of the physical virtual disk image (.vmdk) file on the host system.