Shared folders are not updated on host-based file changes (Win7)

[Mythos42]

Hello,

we use VMware Workstation 10.0.5 with Win7-64/SP1 as host as well as guest system. Unfortunately we run into a lot of trouble because our shared folders are not updated as expected.

We created several shared folders refering to different local directories on the host system. If we create or delete some files on the host system the guest system does not automatically detect these changes. In other words you always have to refresh the folder views (e.g. by pressing F5 in Windows Explorer) to see the updates in the guest system.

How to reproduce:

1. Create shared folder called 'Myfolder'

2. Mount 'Myfolder' as network drive Z: in the guest

3. Start Windows Explorer in the Guest and open drive Z:

4. Create a new text file Z:\Test.txt using the Guest

5. Keep Windows Explorer open for Z:

6. Delete Test.txt file on the host

7. Check whether Windows Explorer is updated in the Guest

8. Press F5 in Windows Explorer to initiate a manual refresh in the Guest

At least on our systems the Windows Explorer inside the Guest is not automatically updated if the content of the shared folder is altered by the host.

Since we have a lot of software here that needs to monitor certain directories for file changes we have had a lot of trouble in the past since these software can not use shared folders at all (because these tools are not triggered by host-based file changes).

I would really appreciate if somebody can assist us with this issue.

Thank you very much for any answer.

Best regards!

[steve_goddard]

HI there,

Sorry to tell you that so far, yes, the change notification support has not been available for Workstation using VMware Shared Folders.

It has been added on Fusion for the OS X hosts.

There are plans to complete the feature support for Windows hosts but due to a lack of resources this has not been done to date.

Until that is done and completed (currently I cannot give any estimates when that might be), is it possible for you to use a Microsoft CIFS share?

I will file a new issue so that we can track this and possibly generate some interest in getting this feature completed.

Thanks

Steve

[Mythos42]

Unfortunately our guest systems must not have networking enabled due to security constraints. Most of our virtual machines provides a complex testing environment that should be fully encapsulated from the environment. Thus we can not enable CIFS and on the other hand we can not use shared folders for direct file interactions since the VM does not detect any changes.

PS: I think file change notifications for shared folders is an vitally important feature because many software presume a working change notification as given. We would really appreciate to see bugs and essential improvements to be implemented first (before new features are implemented). Maybe this issue is a candidate for the next minor release?

[steve_goddard]

HI there

Thanks for replying stating the constraints you have and why this is critical for your use.

I have already filed a bug against the Shared Folders feature and will try to get to this as soon as I can.

Thanks.

Steve

[steve_goddard]

Just a thought, but for your VM can you use the network setting "Host-only" that would enable you to see ONLY your host machine and not anything beyond that?

Then you would still have to enable a Microsoft share on your host but if that is okay, then you could from the Windows VM mount a drive to your host Microsoft share and get their change notifications.

If that doesn't work even temporarily, then waiting on the shared folders fix seems to be the only option...

Steve

[Mythos42]

Actually our virtual machines are provided by the customer and each virtual machine has to be approved by QA. Afterwards the software and hardware configuration must not be changed. Thus for the moment I am not sure how we could fix this. But maybe this will be fixed in one of the next minor releases... 🙂

[Mythos42]

BTW: In the past we have seen different software tools having problems to maintain files on shared folders and it seems that these specific implementations expect a working file change notification. For example we have some administration tools that watch out for lock files by monitoring a directory. Obviously these lock files (created by other processes) are hidden for all tools that just monitoring the file changes instead of listing the directory each time.

[Mythos42]

Hi Steve,

are there any good news regarding this issue? We have still a lot of trouble here due to missing file notifications in our shared folders.

Best Regards!

[steve_goddard]

Sorry to reply it is still very much on my plate.

I have been doing bug fixes for the Linux client and testing and bugs for the Windows client. Tested it at Microsoft for Windows 10 compatibility.

So I have not had any cycles to dedicate to this. I will do though, as this really needs to be comparable with the Fusion product.

Steve

[Midiar]

It looks like this has not been fixed in Workstation 12.5 either.

Running Win10, my IIS10 gets an error when trying to setup change notification on a shared folder with web.config.

Is it correct that this has not been fixed yet?

::tor