How to manually merge snapshots in Hyper-V

There are lot of articles similar with that. Ok. This is a only just my recent experience

I have VM with only one AVHD (snapshot/checkpoint) . If your VM has a lot of AVHD files , you need to locate the latest.

For example, you have 3 snapshots for VM (VHD <> AVHD1<> AVHD2 <> AVHD3) .

VHD is the parent disk for AVHD1, AVHD1 is the parent for AVHD2 and AVHD2 is the parent for AVHD3.

Merging process: AVHD3 to AVHD2, AVHD2 to AVHD1 , AVHD1 to VHD

In my case I have only AVHD1 and parent VHD (on the picture below)

View (for 2012/2012R2, folder properties 2008/2008R2) –> activate “File Name Extensions” and change AVHD extension  to VHD

Go to Hyper-V Manager , click on Edit Disk on the right pane , Browse and locate your checkpoint (.vhd)

Click on the Next and choose Merge

Merge the changes to the parent virtual disk

Click “Finish”

Result:

Merging AVHD to VHD is completed.Now you can use this merged VHD disk during VM creation.