Serious bug in Shared Folders feature in VmWare Workstation 8.x

[DmitryBond]

Hi.

I see - there is a serious bug in that feature!

In particular scenario is following:

• Enable Shared Folders feature for VM (let say = "D:\share" on host PC will be visible as "Z:\HostShare" on VM)
  (here you can suspend/resume VM couple of times)
• On VM, using a shell script copy all *.h, *.c* files from "Z:\HostShare\sandbox\modules\core\myApp1\source" to "D:\sandbox\modules\core\myApp1\source"
  (here you can suspend/resume VM couple of times and then repeat the same copy-operation)
• On host PC - open any of *.h, *.c* files which were copied on VM - edit it and try to save, Windows on host PC will report "file access error" - file is in-use and cannot be overwritten (or such)

Solution:

• go to VM, open VM Settings, disable Shared Folders feature, click [OK], then enable Shared Folders feature back

As I can see this bug is exists in VmWare Workstation for quite a long time (more than 3 years).

Could you pleas fix it, finally?

The idea is - Shared Folders feature MUST NOT EXCLUSIVELY LOCK FILES which were accessed from VM. Especially when these files were closed/released on VM.

Thank you in advance.

Dmitry.

[rich071]

You were very clear. Reread my response above about the scripting portion. It's all there. AutoIt would work great in this case. I use AutoIT to enhance other programs. It's totally free but not open source. Here's a link to the Example Scripts from other users. Example Scripts - AutoIt Forums  Here is link about using AutoIt for unlocking files, http://www.autoitscript.com/forum/topic/69047-file-unlock-pitfalls/?hl=%26quot%3Bunlocking+files%26q... You can search the forums for more, if interested.

It sounds like you are doing the same thing I'm doing. Writing code on the Host and testing in a VM. Unlocker works great. I'm sorry you don't trust it. I have been using it for years with no issues. I really doubt that the vendor will release the source code for Unlocker. If you search the Internet, I'm sure you will find something that is open source for unlocking files. Unlocker is NOT the only program available. The reason, I use the Unlocker, it will unlock the files through a script. After testing, part of the script will unlock the file(s) and compile again after making changes. You can't get much simpler than that. It sure beats needless clicking in the settings and/or shutting down and restarting the VM to do the same thing. I believe some shut down, disable the Shared Folders, then reenable them back and restart the VM. A total waste of time in either case.

Use Google to search for an open source program to unlock files. I'll bet you will find some. Until then, in the meantime, keep on repeating the 12 click routine. Sounds like it's working for you until you find a better way.

Sorry I couldn't help you more.

Good Luck,

[DmitryBond]

Ok. Thank you for your time.

[mgambrell]

Serious bug still in vmware workstation pro 15.5.6

Thanks for the discussion on workarounds here, folks, since it seems this won't be fixed in millions of vmware versions

see also some discussion at https://superuser.com/questions/420069/releasing-files-locked-by-shared-folders-feature