Fusion

Is this what you see when you double click on Mac HD, and then double click on the Users folder?

Is the Shared Folders put here by OSX or by Fusion?

Also, is everyone having problems using it?

I want to access data from both versions of Vista Ultimate in VM's, ie from the Boot Camp partition and from the Virtual Disk...

I guess if the Shared Folders isn't working out.. then I'll have to use an external drive, and take one with me whever I go... ?

The question then becomes 'do I want to do this using NTFS, or HFS+ and MacDrive?'

Is this what you see when you double click on Mac HD,

and then double click on the Users folder?

No, that's a Mac OS feature. /Users/Shared has nothing to do with Fusion. It's for files shared among the users of the same Mac. Fusion's Shared Folders feature has to do with files shared between a virtual machine and the host Mac.

I want to access data from both versions of Vista

Ultimate in VM's, ie from the Boot Camp partition and

from the Virtual Disk...

There are many ways to do this; Shared Folders is just one. If you enable and configure Shared Folders, your Mac's home directory will be visible inside your virtual machines as if it were a network share coming from "
.host\Shared Folders". Of course, you can also have a real network share too. For example, I enable Windows Sharing on my Mac; it has a static IP address and my VMs are always in bridged mode. So I can assign a drive letter to "
192.168.130.96\brice", which is how my Mac shares out my home directory.

But that won't work very well for you if your Mac doesn't always have the same IP address and/or if you change your VMs' network mode frequently.

Using an external disk as a way to share files could be a pain, because a USB device can only be attached to one computer (your Mac or a VM) at a time. But if you want to move large files infrequently, it could be a good solution.

Well...

Could you use the OSX Shared Folder if you were using MacDrive?

You could access it[/i], sure. But as noted, the contents of that folder aren't terribly interesting to Windows, and it's not allowing you to share files across the OS's. Personally I use a small Maxtor "NAS" as a file server between my Mac, my Windows VM's, and my Windows machines at home.

I assume you're talking about MediaFour's MacDrive tool, which (if I am reading their documentation correctly) discovers HFS+ file systems on physically connected media and presents them to Windows as local disks.

That sounds ideal for a Boot Camp partition (a non-VM one), but the idea of running MacDrive in a Boot Camp VM makes me very, very nervous. HFS, like most file systems, assumes that only one computer is messing with its structure at a time. I would expect corruption to result if two computers (Mac OS and WindowsMacDrive) were touching an HFS+ at the same time.

The nice thing about either Shared Folders or a network share is that, at all times, only one computer is da boss. Only one computer is touching the HFS+ at the block level at a time (namely, the Mac).

Sure, you could run MacDrive to access an HFS+ file system on an external disk. But, if I were you, I wouldn't point it at anything called "Macintosh HD" from within a VM!

Disclaimer: I've never used MacDrive; maybe they have done something awesome to permit block-level multiple access to HFS+, or maybe they notice that you are running a Boot Camp VM and play nice.

You know this is one of things that VMWare needs to address in some kind of manual for users..., this and the command line tools that are available but not shipped witht Fusion downloads.... I spent a good deal of time wondering why I was so dumb that I didn't know where these mysterious vdiskmanager tools et were hidden from within Fusion, until I read here otherwise... And the Shared Folders, kind of threw me off.. like when you look at foriegn language, think you know what the word means, and it means something else entirely...

They need a manual written for both the dumbest of the dumb, so they don't drive with no pressure in their tires.. and they need something deep enough so if you want to get analytical, you can...

I misread something Pat Lee wrote once.. and was thinking... oh, well, I'm going to need MacDrive... to do that... and now I realize he wasn't saying that at all.... So when Fusion virtualizes NTFS so you can write to a Shared Folder... (Fusion's Folder)... and its really layed over HFS+... isn't that kind of like what MacDrive is doing...

And then I get confused.. with the idea of using Winclone... am I going to use it with MacDrive or without MacDrive.. to NTFS or to HFS+ or to both...

Without clear instructions, we're all just little kids sticking our fingers into light sockets.

You know this is one of things that VMWare needs to

address in some kind of manual for users...,

Shared Folders is explained in the online help that comes with Fusion. Have you seen that? Pull down Fusion's Help menu and choose "VMware Fusion Help." Then go to "Moving and Sharing Files with Your Mac."

However, I do grant you that the online help doesn't explain the difference between VMware Shared Folders and Mac OS's /Users/Shared.

I misread something Pat Lee wrote once.. and was

thinking... oh, well, I'm going to need MacDrive...

to do that... and now I realize he wasn't saying that

at all.... So when Fusion virtualizes NTFS so you can

write to a Shared Folder... (Fusion's Folder)... and

its really layed over HFS+... isn't that kind of like

what MacDrive is doing...

Let me give you a better way to think about VMware Shared Folders. Imagine that you want to go to the airport, but you don't have a car (and there is no other way to get there). So you have two choices: you can rent a car, or you can hire a taxi.

If you hire a taxi, all you have to do is to say to the driver "To the airport!" and off you go. The driver takes responsibility for actually operating the car. But if you rent a car yourself, you take responsibility for driving it (and putting fuel in it, and returning it, and so on).

VMware Shared Folders is like hiring a taxi. Mac OS is the taxi driver; VMware Shared Folders says to Mac OS, "You deal with all the details of how this is actually stored on disk: NTFS or HFS+ or FAT or whatever. I just want to work with the files."

MacDrive is like renting a car. MacDrive accepts the duty of understanding the details of how data is stored on disk and to present the data to Windows as useful files and directories. It's driving the car, so to speak.

Now, can two people simultaneously drive the same car safely? NO (unless it's one of those unusual cars with two steering wheels that are used for driver training). In the same way, two operating systems cannot safely access the same HFS+ at the same time. This is why you don't want to use MacDrive in a Boot Camp VM.

Frankly, I think MacDrive isn't terribly useful to Fusion users. It seems dangerous in a Boot Camp VM, and it would have no access at all to your host Mac's file systems when run in an ordinary VM. If you want to share files between VMs and host, just use Shared Folders or network shares.

And then I get confused.. with the idea of using

Winclone... am I going to use it with MacDrive or

without MacDrive.. to NTFS or to HFS+ or to both...

I also don't think Winclone is very useful to Fusion users. The purpose of Winclone is to let you copy your Boot Camp partition to another disk. But the purpose of Fusion's support for running Boot Camp partitions as VMs is to make copying your Boot Camp partition unnecessary. And, if you really want to move your Boot Camp partition into an ordinary VM (the kind with virtual disks that are stored as files), VMware Converter will do that for you much more simply than Winclone will.

Sounds like you spent some talking with the Hare Krishna at LAX...

So, if what would you use to backup your boot camp partition.. thats what I was thinking I was going to need Winclone for...

Gee, now I have MacDrive, and its just sitting in the garage. I guess the only time I would ever use it is if I were to boot natively (which I can't because of activation issues.. ). You cant use the Shared Folders when booted natively can you..

So, if what would you use to backup your boot camp

partition.. thats what I was thinking I was going to

need Winclone for...

Sure, Winclone would work fine. As far as I can tell, you could even use MacDrive to allow Winclone to write its backup into a Mac file system. Just don't do it while your Boot Camp partition is running as a VM!

But this seems really elaborate to me. If it were my machine, I'd just plug in a cheapo USB disk drive and back up to it, using NTBACKUP or WinClone or whatever you like.

Gee, now I have MacDrive, and its just sitting in the

garage. I guess the only time I would ever use it is

if I were to boot natively (which I can't because of

activation issues.. ).

So your Boot Camp partition is Vista? For XP, you should only be prompted twice for activation: the first time you boot the Boot Camp partition as a VM, and the first time after that you boot natively.

You cant use the Shared Folders when booted natively can you..

That is correct. VMware Shared Folders are a virtual-machine feature; when your Boot Camp partition is running natively, it's not a virtual machine.

Maybe they should call them Virtual Folders

I want to be able to back up the Boot Camp partition when running non-natively...

Backing up a VM on a VD seems like no big deal.. SuperDuper handles it easily.. and I assume Retrospect would too (though assuming they'll update is a godless assumption. thy will be done. if thy wills it. and if not. so be it).

So since you say using MacDrive in a VM is like renting a car while on an airplane with arabic speaking pentacostals, maybe I should be using Winclone to backup to an NTFS partition, and likewise for Retrospect Professional for Windows. ? ... or else.. use Retrospect Desktop for Mac to backup the Boot Camp partition with another client licence.