When I try to delete a file from Explorer in a Win2k VM (XP host) then it takes at least 30 seconds before the file is deleted. During this period Explorer is completly locked up and does not respond to any messages. But once this first file has been deleted, then a second delete is instant. But if I then wait for some minutes and try to delete another file, then the same thing occurs again. I've noticed the same behaviour on XP VMä's as well.
Has anyone else seen this behaviour? Any clue how to fix it?
Perhaps your antivirus application is inappropriately locking a file somewhere while it scans it for viruses? On your Host, try excluding the Directory containing your Guest files from your AntiVirus Real Time Scanner.
Are your Guests stored on an external Drive? Maybe the drive is spinning down after being idle for a while...?
Did you ever determine what the problem was? Another thought I had was to ask if you are deleting a file from a VMware Shared Folder -- if so that might be the cause of the slowness.
I have excluded all VmWare file extensions from real-time virus scanning, so the virus scanner will not interfere when deleting a file. And the catalog where I try to delete file is on a virtual disk, not any shared network disk or shared folder. The problem remains unsolved.
If you attach the vmware.log and .vmx files from the directory containing your Guest we'll take a look.
I just discovered an interesting fact. My client configuration consists of two virtual disks (C: and D:) where I've done a "subst" on D:\Data to create a new disk F: .
If I delete a file on D:\Data (i.e D:\Data\x.txt) then it disappears instantly. But if I delete the same file on F: (F:\x.txt) then it takes at least 30 seconds with intense disk activity before the file disappears.
