Compacting image in VMWare

[yg17]

I have an XP virtual machine in VMWare with a 30 gig HD image.

Once I did the fresh install of XP and used a few gigs, the HD image file expanded to a few gigs, as would be expected. I then copied over a large amount of data temporarily to the VM which brought the disk image to 12 gigs. I deleted that data, so I'm back down to a few gigs HD usage, but the disk image is still 12 gigs. Is there a way to compact it or something to free up that wasted space? Thanks

 

[nospamboz]

Is there a way to compact it or something to free up that wasted space?

These questions are best asked on the Fusion Beta forum at VMWare.

http://www.vmware.com/products/beta/fusion/

This question is answered there, saying to use the "Shrink" tab in
the VMWare Tools dialog, accessable via the system tray icon.

They warn that you may want to backup the VMDK file first (it's a beta,
after all) and that it could take a while (like hours).