Cannot enable "Shared Folders"

[trimple]

Hello,

I'm using VMware Fusion on a OSX Leopard and my Guest OS is the Vista which is installed on my BootCamp Partition. When I go into the settings of the VM and I check the "Enabled"-Flag in the "Shared Folders" menu something strange happens. As soon as I click on the "Apply" button the flag gets unchecked! It doesn't change anything if the VM is running or stopped or if I've already created some shared folders or not. In the VM Tools menu in Vista of course is noticed, that the shared folders aren't enabled.

Thank you for any help!

trimple

[WoodyZ]

When I go into the settings of the VM and I check the "Enabled"-Flag in the "Shared Folders" menu something strange happens. As soon as I click on the "Apply" button the flag gets unchecked! It doesn't change anything if the VM is running or stopped or if I've already created some shared folders or not. In the VM Tools menu in Vista of course is noticed, that the shared folders aren't enabled.

I have found that settings sheet to be buggy in that it takes checking just the "Enable at power on" check box then clicking the Apply button and then repeating the process. In other words just checking the "Enable at power on" check box and clicking the Apply button once didn't take but doing is a second time right after the first time it then stayed checked. Don't even check the "Enabled" check box on that same sheet however click the "Enabled" check box on the sheet that has the Shared Folder information.

[nikster]

What do the two options mean, in any case? What's the difference? I want Shared folders enabled, why are there two checkboxes.

I tried to enable shared folders and saw the same problem as the original poster: I would click "Apply" and the settings box "Enable Shared Folders" would get unchecked again. I played with this for a while and somehow got it to stick eventually.

Then, I thought I better enable the shared folders at start up as well. But as soon as I checked that (both checkboxes checked) and clicked apply, the ceck would get removed from both.

After playing with this for a while again, I eventually got it so the second checkbox is checked. I was unable to get the first one to stick though.

Please fix, this is clearly a bug. And quite annoying when shared folders don't work...

[trimple]

I tried now a lot of different combinations of checking the different boxes and rebooting but it never really works. For the moment I simply use the drag and drop function to copy files from OSX to the guest OS and back. That works fine but of course it's not a definitely solution.

[nikster]

I found another workaround:

- Quit VMWare

- Go to your VMWare Virtual machine. Mine is called winXP and it's in Documents/Virtual Machines

- Right click, select "Show Package Contents"

- Inside the folder that opens, find the virtual machine configuration file. The file is called (virtual machine name).vmx. It's the only file in this folder with extension .vmx. Since my virtual machine is called winXP, the file is called winXP.vmx

- Open the .vmx file with a text editor. I used the free TextWrangler, but any should do as long as it allows you to open the file

- Add the following line above the section where it says "sharedFolder0.x....":

sharedFolder.option = "alwaysEnabled"

This option is like checking the "enabled" checkbox, except that it actually works. If you already have a sharedFolder.option="..." setting in your file, be sure to replace it with the one above.

- Start VMWare

Now shared folders are enabled for good.

Make sure to not even look at the Settings/SharedFolders checkboxes - if you check or uncheck anything there, VMWare will override your settings again.

Nik

Fixed horrific email formatting

[nikster]

whoops, double post...

[admin]

We are awear of this issue, a bug has been filed.

To enable the "Share Folders":

1. Power off the VM

2. In the Settings, Shared Folders, check the "Enabled at power on"

3. Click "Apply", then "ok"

4. Power on the VM

Check the setting again, both "Enabled" and "Enabled at power on" should be checked.

Hope this helps.

[berdinkerdickle]

...clip...

You have to click Settings in the VMWare main window (it's at the top), then go to Share folders BUT CLICK THE LITTLE "+" sign at the bottom left to define a shared folder on the Mac side...

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=408994

[Zytac]

Host Vmware Fusion, guest Bootcamp/Vista. Shared folders cannot enabled as reported by vmware tools.

Works OK in a Windows XP guest on same machine.

Tried the alwaysEnabled settings edit, no joy.

This shared folder problem is the only BUG I have found so far with Fusion.

Any further ideas. Should I make a bug report?

[rcardona2k]

In addition to the always enable flag, make sure you don't have this configuration file (.vmx) setting present:

isolation.tools.hgfs.disable = "TRUE"

[Zytac]

Hi

I have now switched to a non-bootcamp VM running Windows XP. The

Bootcamp/Vista VM is now relegated to experimental status. That

resolves the primary issue.

The problem now is that the application installer I am using (Lotus

Notes 8.0), cannot change permissions on a Shared Folder. (It is

trying to set some files as RO). I can change them manually from WXP,

but the application uses the WinAPI's or MFC's I guess which do not

see what they expect. The VM emulator programmers have taken some

short cuts somewhere.

This has forced me to use a USB2 external hard disk formatted as FAT.

So far that is the only work around I have found to the problems with

the Fusion Shared folders. Vmware supports USB (not Firewire), and

that way operates pretty much in a native MS environment. The drawback

is the the data cannot be shared but at least can be made visible to

OSX when the VM is powered down.

For the VM to work in a production environment using Mac OSX native

drives, more work is needed.

Michael White

Zytac Ltd

T. 02082226490

M: 07966 284120

[Roestuff]

I had the same probelms as everyone else and was about to throw in the towel when I found a tweak on the MAC side that worked for me. I could not beleive my eyes when the files saved and copied without an "Access Denied" error. Plus it is an easy and rapid solution...

Go to the folder you want to share on the MAC side (the same folder that would not allow saving or pasing of fileson the windows side). Right click the folder and choose "Get Info". On the bottom under "Sharing and Permissions", click the "+" to add "admin". Then change the privilege to "Read and Write".

Apparently Windows recognizes the Admin user and not everyone or your user name as being 100% shared with all privileges.

Hope this helps!!

[realtoast]

Roestuff,

I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm very glad that after reading all of the above gibberish I decided to not mess with any of the suggested delicate surgery and instead first tried out this solution because it seemed fairly harmless. It worked famously and was easy (and, in retrospect, obvious).

If you are reading this entire thread, don't waste your time messing with folders and settings in VM. Just make this simple tweak on the Mac side.

Thank you!