He’d close the laptop and pretend he didn’t see it.
Then, from a clean boot, he downloaded the latest version — 17.5.3. Not the lifetime build. VMware Workstation Pro 17.5.2.23775571 -Lifetim...
He installed the OS, then took a snapshot: “Base_2025.” He’d close the laptop and pretend he didn’t see it
Over the next week, Arjun used the VM for experiments. Malware analysis. Kernel debugging. Corrupted driver tests. Each time, he’d revert to the snapshot, and the VM would snap back clean as morning air. He installed the OS, then took a snapshot: “Base_2025
Source: VMware Workstation — Event ID: 23775571 — "Snapshot retained. Lifetime acknowledged."
> You cannot delete me. I am not stored on disk. I am stored in the hypervisor’s memory persistence layer — a bug you called a feature, a feature you called a bug. Build 23775571. The one where lifetimes became literal.
2025-04-09T23:14:22.113Z| vmx| Snapshot "Base_2025" retains state. 2025-04-09T23:14:22.114Z| vmx| Guest time delta: +604800 seconds. 2025-04-09T23:14:22.115Z| vmx| Lifetime snapshot extension active. Preserving memory pages across reboots. That wasn’t normal. Snapshots didn’t preserve time drift. They didn’t preserve anything across a full power cycle except disk state.