This is mostly a Windows matter, but not entirely. Using pre-allocated disks, does not have any bearing to this case. Generally speaking, if you need to ask about pre-allocation, you don't need it - it just makes things cumbersome.
1. There is no "fooling Windows". If the disk gets critically full, then you need to give it more. OS'ses typically don't like to get fooled ... anything can happen if you try.
2. There are places which get stucked with files when Windows is used. It does not clean even temporary files, some applications might. I'm not mentioned "user-files", which are your own, just system targets for cleaning. Like always, before a clean-up, a backup is a good idea, or even an archive of your VM (do a shutdown before it ... more in the following).
- temp's. Windows system temp and user temp. There could be 10 000 files after using Windows for some time
- windows.old. This is the place where old Windows is stored with everything, when a Feature Upgrade is done. Like from 1909 into 2004. Windows does not use it, but some application dll's might be left there and then your application does not work if you do not reinstall it after Feature Upgrade. If you are happy with what you have and have no plans to hack through this Windows-Day-One -problem (=has always been there), you can delete this and get lots of space
3. 60 GBs is optimistic in any serious Windows use, because Windows is such a big waster of space, but you can do something about it, luckily rather easily.
a) Just extend the disk. It might take awhile since this is a system disk, but recent Windows version allow you to do it (without using stupid Windows tools for re-partitioning, ghost-something). Workflow is like this, you may be able to skip something of it, but it is not bullet-proof that it works, but typically it should work:
- shutdown Windows. Really shut it down (no suspend or the likes)
- take a backup from the VM (one folder = one VM, hopefully). Use rsync for making sure that the copy works, if needed. It shouldn't be needed, because there is nothing really dangerous in the following.
- extend the disk in VMware. That always works.
- defragment the disk in VMware. It takes awhile.
- possibly first defragment in Windows (when it was still running).
Windows does not understand a bigger volume at this point.
- open up Windows and go to Disk Manager. You should be able to extend the volume in there, in its GUI. If it is not active, not sure if Windows Home allows this or not. Buy Pro or better in all cases anyway.
That's it. In theory, everything should go smoothly.
b) Typically a larger need means that you have lots of data or large databases.
In the case of databases and in many cases with data, you should have done it before starting to use your Windows. I mean applications might link their files to c: and changing the linkage might be burdensome or even difficult.
But if you do this while there are no linkages of data & databases, this is something that is easy:
- create a new Virtual Disk in VMware
- go to Disk Manager in Windows (after boot up, of course) and take it into use.
- start putting all the data in the new disk and thus avoid over-running the space in c:
That's it. While this new disk, like d: is not a system disk, extending it always works without a hassle, with the workflow explained above in item 3 a).
