Manage Hyper-v checkpoints

Checkpoints ( formerly snapshots ) are files that save the state of the virtual machine. Create a checkpoint, you can quickly restore the virtual machine to a specific point in time. 

Creating a checkpoint

Open Hyper-v Manager, Select Hyper-v Server, then right-click a virtual machine you want to creating a checkpoint，and select Checkpoint.

Applying a checkpoint

The applying a checkpoint is return the virtual machine to its previous state（The status of the checkpoint）.

Open Hyper-v Manager，select a virtual machine you want to return state, right-click the checkpoint in Checkpoints pane and select Apply.

You can choose from the following options：

Apply: Apply the selected checkpoint，and Overwrite the existing state of the virtual machine.

Create Checkpoint And Apply: Creating a new checkpoint of the virtual machine to save its existing state. Then apply the selected checkpoint.

Rename checkpoint

You can right-click checkpoint, and select Rename to rename the checkpoint.

Delete checkpoint
You can right-click checkpoint, and select Delete Checkpoint or Delete Checkpoint Subtree to delete checkpoint or checkpoint subtree.

You can use Checkpoint-VM cmdlet on Windows PowerShell to create a virtual machine checkpoint.

Name: Virtual Name

SnapshotName: Snapshot Name

You can use Restore-VMSnapshot cmdlet on Windows PowerShell to restore virtual machine state.

Name: Snapshot Name

VMName: Virtual Name

You can use Get-VMSnapshot cmdlet on Windows PowerShell to view the virtual machine checkpoint.

VMName: Virtual Name

Production Checkpoint

Before Windows Server 2016，Microsoft to strongly recommend checkpoint not be used on production VMs.

Because, a checkpoint saved state of the Virtual machine，not the virtual machine itself.

Windows Server 2016 include a product checkpoint feature, which use the Volume Shadow Copy Service in Windows，or File System Freeze in Linux，to create a snapshot of the data from a virtual machine，without saving its state.

The use of production checkpoints is the default on all Windows Server 2016 VMs

You can open VM's Settings dialog box in Hyper-V Manager to the Checkpoints page, select Production checkpoint or Standard checkpoint option.

You can also this page to specify the location for the checkpoint files from the virtual machine, and disable checkpoint.

Note: The way the two checkpoints are not the same, you need to select the appropriate checkpoint according to the actual situation.

You can use the Set-VM cmdlet in Windows PowerShell to change the checkpoint default