Hello,

I have made some checkpoints on two domain controllers before discovering tonight that creating checkpoints on DCs is not supported.

I made the checkpoints about a month ago when the VM were running.

Is it safe to delete the checkpoints on the two VMs?

Thanks all!

Paul

Yes, you can safely delete them.

The reason it is not supported is that if you ever returned a domain controller checkpoint you would be taking that DC back in time. 

And Active Directory really hates time travel (at least going back in time) and you would get all of the related fall out that goes with it.

Hi Paul,

if it's safe or not is depending on the OS of your VMs. In 2012 (R2) Snapshots are supported and don't cause anything bad.

In case your DCs are 2008 (R2), I'd rather be careful.

Best Regards,
Jens

If you did not revert back to a previous checkpoint you can safely remove the old checkpoint. The checkpoints are then merged without issues, and of course without going back in time.

Like Brian and Jens wrote it can be an issue when you use a previous checkpoint on a single DC. I never make checkpoints from DC's. Unless they are all offline and alle reverted back at the same time. But still, be carefull with it.

Hi Paul,

Even it is not support, personal experience is we can first use Windows Server backup to back up the DC first then we can safely to delete the earliest checkpoint until now, we can not apply any previous checkpoint on DC.

More information:

Things to consider when you host Active Directory domain controllers in virtual hosting environments

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/888794/

Im glad to be of help to you!