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LachlanG
Contributor
Contributor

What is the absolute path bug

I have found a few references in these forums to something called the absolute path bug but nothing definitive. I believe this bug has bitten me twice in the past month and I'm eager to understand it better so I can avoid the problem in the future.

I use VMWare Workstation 6.0.0 on a WinXP host. The two instances have involved linked clones. At some point the cloned snapshot in the source VM actually becomes identical to the first snapshot in the linked clone. This causes subsequent snapshots in the source VM to be invalid.

Specifically I would like to know

  • what is the action that causes the problem as I have not been able to replicate it?

  • which versions of VMWare Workstation suffer this problem? (I've only seen it since I moved to WS 6.0.0, I never had the problem with WS 5.5)

  • is it fixed in WS 6.0.2? (I've just upgraded this morning)

  • if it is fixed in WS 6.0.2 are VMs created in WS 6.0 still suceptible to the problem?

  • can I test if a VM is likely to suffer from the problem?

Regards,

Lachlan Gemmell

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oreeh
Immortal
Immortal

what is the action that causes the problem as I have not been able to replicate it?

This is unfortunately not yet clear.

which versions of VMWare Workstation suffer this problem? (I've only seen it since I moved to WS 6.0.0, I never had the problem with WS 5.5)

It seems that all versions since 6.0.0 are affected. VMware Server is affected as well.

if it is fixed in WS 6.0.2 are VMs created in WS 6.0 still suceptible to the problem?

Yes (the same goes for VMs created with VMware Server)

can I test if a VM is likely to suffer from the problem?

Yes, the steps to test for the bug are documented in

Be aware that with a linked clone an absolute path in the descriptor can be totally valid!

Message was edited by: oreeh

VMSD and VMSN files can be affected by the bug as well!