Mirrored Folders

[eyefocus2]

I am going to be using VMware fusion 3 with Windows 7. My mac has about 15 gigs of music and photos. I would like to mirror those folders in win 7 but I have a few questions. Do I have to make room for the 15 gig of music and pics in my virtual machine or does the mirror function allow me to accesss them without copying them to the virtual machine. Also can i edit those photos from my virtual machine? Thanks for your help, Joe

[WoodyZ]

Mirrored Folders technically aren't mirrored and AFAIC was a very poor choice to call this feature especially since the term mirrored in the context of computers has most often referred to replication which in this case it's not...

Mirrored Folders allows you to map special folders on your Mac, such as Desktop, Documents, Pictures, and Music, to their counterparts in your Virtual Machine and since this is just a mapping it is not replicating (or mirroring) the content so as an example if you go into My Documents under Windows you're actually looking at Documents on the Mac under your Mac User Account.

[eyefocus2]

Thanks, WoodyZ. Does that mean that if I edit a photo in windows it actually edits the file in OSX? No photos are actually in windows?

[WoodyZ · Accepted solution]

Any actions taken on files(s)/folder(s) from within the Virtual Machine that are in a Mirrored Folder are actually happening on the Host's Filesystem. So if I create a document on the Mac and save it in the Documents folder in my Home Folder and then I start the Virtual Machine that I have Mirrored Folders enabled on and go into My Documents in Windows I can open that same document and edit it. So it's one file accessible from both OSes and can be worked on from either OS although should only by directly accessed by one at a time.

A cautionary note in that under normal circumstances while in Windows and deleting a file from My Documents it would go into the Recycle Bin however if this file is in a Mirrored Folder it is immediately deleted and so keep that in mind when using this feature.

[eyefocus2]

Thanks for taking the time to expalin "mirrored folders".