Sandbox within vmware workstation, is it possible?

Question

What I want to be able to do is that, run a vmware machine on workstation, windows xp or 7 for instance. But all the changes I make while I am running the machine e.g. create a file, install something etc, I don't want them to be written to the system/image. Instead it should act like even the image itself is sandboxed, and when I shut down the machine, the image stays the same.

Now, I know about the snapshots functionality, but I basically want to save the time that is expended while reverting an image, on every power down session. Instead it should be such that the changes aren't written to the image/system in the first place (and instead are done in something like memory or a temporary location etc), and thus there is no need to revert when the system is powered off.

Now, is this possible to achieve with just vmware workstation itself? if not than is it possible with some third party tool or something of the sort? if yes then specifically which tool? or if this is possible utilizing any other concepts, say ramdisks etc or anything at all really?

Any help at all is really appreciated!

Answer 1

If I understand your you correctly, defining the VM's disks as nonpersistant should help.