Trouble setting up Shared Folders (BootCamp)

[Greg_C]

I'm relatively new to Fusion and am hoping someone can help me out setting up a shared folder. I'm running Fusion 1.1.2 using my BootCamp Windows XP installation and would like to share my Mac's Home Folder with the guest OS. I've added the Home folder as a Shared Folder in the Fusion settings menu, and checked the "Enabled" box. However, I'm having what seems like a strange problem with the general Shared Folders settings. When both boxes are unchecked and I then check Enabled and click Apply, the box unchecks itself. The same happens with Enabled at Power On. If I check both boxes and click Apply, Enabled unchecks itself but Enabled at power on remains checked. Hopefully someone can understand what's going on and tell me if I'm doing something wrong. I did try booting XP with Fusion and accessing the shared folder using
.host\Shared Folders\ in Windows Explorer, but I get a Windows error message saying it isn't accessible. I'd really like to get this working properly...thanks.

-Greg

[rcardona2k]

Personally I find it better to avoid the check boxes and go directly to Virtual Machine settings > + > Add Shared Folder... It's not necessary to check "Enabled at power on" for most uses where you have to login to the guest first. Check the VMware Tools in the system tray under the Sharing tab and it will confirm whether Shared Folders is really active or not. If it says Shared Folders are configured, then in Explorer

\\.host\Shared Folders\<name>

will work.

[Greg_C]

Thanks for the quick reply. I checked the VMware Tools Shared Folders tab and it said they were not active even though I had checked Enabled for my shared Home folder. Apparently I need the main Enabled box to remain checked. Strangely, I tried enabling it once I was booted into Windows through Fusion, and the shared folder became active, allowing me to access it through
.host\Shared Folders\ However, the next time I ran Windows through Fusion the Shared Folders were back to being disabled and I'm having the same problem of the Enable boxes unchecking themselves. I've tried enabling them both before I boot into XP through Fusion and while my XP virtual machine is running. My only random success came when I enabled the folder while XP was running. Am I doing something wrong?

[WoodyZ]

Have a look at "Changes to the shared folder settings might not take effect." in the Known Issues section of the Release Notes http://www.vmware.com/support/fusion/doc/releasenotes_fusion.html

Other then that have a look at my reply in http://communities.vmware.com/message/926776#926776

[Greg_C]

Thanks for the information, WoodyZ. I played around with the settings/checkboxes some more and finally got it to work properly (so far so good after a couple re-boots to be sure). I was also able to map the shared folder as a network drive in Windows. Seems to be working great, VMware really is an outstanding program and I'm impressed with the quick help I've received here on the message boards.