View Composer enables the use of linked clones with View Manager in order to reduce the amount of storage needed per VM. It does this by coping the parent VM + snapshot into a protected VM or entity. This VM is protected so it can’t be deleted in vCenter to ensure an admin doesn’t accidentally delete the VM which users may be referencing.

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The correct way to manage these protected VM’s isn’t within vCenter, it’s in View Manager. When a linked clone enabled pool is created, recomposed, or deleted this updates the protected entity accordingly. In some cases it may be necessary to manually unprotect and remove the protected entity in vCenter. SVICONFIG.EXE is included with View Composer to assist with this. Located under “C:Program FilesVMwareVMware View ComposerSviConfig.exe” this command will unprotect any View Composer related protected entity.

Here is how to unprotect the host folder and any entities it may contain:

1. On the vCenter/View Composer server launch Start –&gt; Run –&gt; CMD
2. Browse to “C:Program FilesVMwareVMware View Composer”
3. Type the command below replacing the default information with specific information for your environment.
“SviConfig -operation=UnprotectEntity -VcUrl=https://my.vc/sdk -Username=User1 -Password=123 -InventoryPath="/My Datacenter/vm/MyReplicaFolder" -Recursive=True”

If this is successful it will return a confirmation of any entities unprotected. Now it will be possible to use vCenter to delete the newly unprotected entity.

C:Program FilesVMwareVMware View Composer&gt;SviConfig -operation=UnprotectEntit
y -VcUrl=https://egvc01.egrouplab.local/sdk -Username=Administrator -Password=XXXXXXXX -InventoryPath="/eGrouplab/vm/VMwareSviReplicaFolder" -Recursive=True
<span style="color: #ff0000;">Establishing connection to the VC server.
VC server connection established successfully.
Looking for the entity on the VC server.
Folder found.
Folder with MoId group-v84 sucessfully unprotected.
SviConfig finished successfully.
Successfully unprotected entities: 1
Fail to unprotect entities: 0
</span>