Bridged Networking / Mapped Network Drives are Unreliable

[mcjathan]

Greetings,

As a preliminary, here is my configuration:

Host Machine: Windows 7 Pro x64 running Vmplayer 5

Guest OS: Windows XP Pro x32 with all the latest MS updates and patches

The guest OS is configured to use bridged networking.

For the mapped drives within the guest OS, I have two configurations that I need to use:

1) The UNC shared folder is physically separate from the vmplayer's host machine.  FYI, this machine is also a Windows 7 Pro x64 machine.

2) The UNC shared folder is physically located on the vmplayer's host machine.

For configuration 1, I'm using the Windows XP mapped network drive feature to setup the mapped drives

For configuration #2, I've tried both the native Windows XP mapped network drive option and also the built-in Vmplayer "Shared Folder" option.

In all cases, the drives appear to mount properly and light use of the mapped drives seems to work just fine.  However, whenever I run an application that taxes the mapped drives I often encounter break-downs and application errors.  I just can't seem to get a solid and reliable mapped drive within the guest OS.

Is this a bridged networking problem?  Or, a mapped drive problem?  Or, both?

Is my problem common?  Please, what steps can I take to get a solid reliable mapped drive within the guest OS?

Best regards,

Jeff

[continuum]

do you use automatic bridging ? - if yes - disable it first of all

[mcjathan]

OK, when I examine the settings for the "Network Adapter" in the "Virtual Machine Settings" I see that it says "Bridged (Automatic).  See the image I attached named "VmPlayer_Virtual_Machine_Settings.png".

So, wanting to get away from automatic mode, I clicked on the "Configure Adapters' button, and it brings up the window shown in the second attached image ("Automatic_Bridging_Settings.png").  There is only one option checklist (the Realtek adapter).  There is no option here to avoid automatic bridging.

Next, I ran the stand-alone "Virtual Network Editor" (with the VM shut down).  Initially, it does show "Automatic" (see the image "Virtual_Network_Editor_1.png").  However, I did reconfigure the settings to NOT use automatic (see the image "Virtual_Network_Editor_2.png").  I din't see any other settings I could change in relation to bridged networking.

However, when I reran the Virtual Machine Settings, it still shows up as automatic (it looked identical to the first image I referenced ("VmPlayer_Virtual_Machine_Settings.png").

So, here's my questions:

1) Because the host machine only has 1 physical network adapter, does it make any difference whether or not the bridging is automatic or not?

2) If it does make a difference, then did I buy any improvement by the changes I made in the Virtual Network Editor?

Regards,

Jeff

[continuum]

did you make those changes as admin - starting vmnetcfg.exe via "run as admin" ?

[mcjathan]

No I didn't "run as admin", but my system did ask to elevate (the whole UAC thing) and required me to enter the admin password (which I did).  Isn't that equivalent to "run as admin"?

Just to be certain, I reran the virtual network editor as an admin ("run as admin") and confirmed that the settings I changed to avoid "automatic" did in fact stick.  The virtual network editor looks exactly like Virtual_Network_Editor_2.png (above).