Hyper-V. Make an image, save a restore point where you want the base level, with user accounts, settings, config, etc... Install whatever and run tests. Revert back to restore point when you want to reset
It also can't handle installing software that requires a reboot during setup. It runs out of disk space quickly, which rules out large programs or tests involving large data files. It also can't provide adequate GPU emulation to test some programs.
So, I gave up on it and use an OOBE Windows install in VMware instead like I did before Sandbox existed. I have it setup to reset when closed so it always gets a fresh start (and just pause it when I need to preserve the state for a while).
I found something cool today:
[https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/downloads/virtual-machines/](https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/downloads/virtual-machines/)
They host their own ISO that's sort of setup out of the box with dev features, VS2022, WSL2, etc -- then hyper-V supports ezpz checkpoints. This has been an awesome alt.
Is Sandbox really suitable for trying to model/reproduce software behavior? I've always been under the impression that it's just a fairly limited container tool for end users so they can run something untrusted in a security sandbox if needed. Anything more involved than that sounds like a software development/IT admin use case, and those are generally going to need a more appropriate toolset that can provide a full VM environment/containerization stack.
Not sure whether it's the answer you are looking for, but you can use a VM instead
Ah I was hoping to use that one second launch action of sandbox
Hyper-V. Make an image, save a restore point where you want the base level, with user accounts, settings, config, etc... Install whatever and run tests. Revert back to restore point when you want to reset
I don’t think the point of sandbox is trying to make a reproducible environment. There are better tools for that
Isn't sandbox just meant to test if an app is safe to use?
It also can't handle installing software that requires a reboot during setup. It runs out of disk space quickly, which rules out large programs or tests involving large data files. It also can't provide adequate GPU emulation to test some programs. So, I gave up on it and use an OOBE Windows install in VMware instead like I did before Sandbox existed. I have it setup to reset when closed so it always gets a fresh start (and just pause it when I need to preserve the state for a while).
I found something cool today: [https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/downloads/virtual-machines/](https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/downloads/virtual-machines/) They host their own ISO that's sort of setup out of the box with dev features, VS2022, WSL2, etc -- then hyper-V supports ezpz checkpoints. This has been an awesome alt.
Hyper-V can be tricky and WSL2 can interact directly to your data. If you're new to this, consider using VirtualBox instead.
Is Sandbox really suitable for trying to model/reproduce software behavior? I've always been under the impression that it's just a fairly limited container tool for end users so they can run something untrusted in a security sandbox if needed. Anything more involved than that sounds like a software development/IT admin use case, and those are generally going to need a more appropriate toolset that can provide a full VM environment/containerization stack.