Free tool for cleaning up VMware Fusion virtual machine disks

VMware Install Cleaner may be used when cleaning up, defragmenting, and shrinking Vmware Fusion virtual machines. It is not an official VMware application, but it may be useful after you have shrunk the virtual disk using official VMware utility tools.

It doesn’t promise the impossible

VMware Install Cleaner doesn’t allow you to reduce the size of your virtual machine’s pre-allocated disk because that is not possible. If the size of your virtual disk is larger than the space shown within your virtual machine’s OS, then VMware Install Cleaner is used after you defragment and shrink your disk. It is helpful if you were having trouble using Fusion’s cleanup tools to manually clean up larger files, (the smaller ones are optimized automatically). You need to shut down your virtual machine, use this tool, and then restart your virtual disk to see an effect. Some people use this tool to remove registry files from their computer. If you are having lots of trouble installing new VM software, then using a tool to manually remove old registry files may help.

A handy second choice

VMware Install Cleaner is not the go-to tool for registry and virtual machine disk cleanup because Fusion has already-installed functionalities to take care of the cleanup process. With Fusion, you go to Go to Virtual Machine > Settings > General, and choose to clean up your virtual machine. If you have problems with further product installs, or if you have trouble manually cleaning larger disk files, then VMware Install Cleaner may be a handy second choice.