Workstation 12.5.7 automatically renaming files on share from host to have a (1) appended every access.

[xtelosx]

Running build 5813279.

I moved 3 VMs from old hardware to a new Win10 host. Have both win 10 and win 7 guests all showing the same issue.

Any time I open a folder on a share to get at a file all files in the folder have a (1) appended to them. If I click on a file to open it or copy it another (1) is appended to the end as well. A rename in the guest doesn't work because as soon as I click on it the name is changed again and the rename returns a file now found. I can rename the file in the host to take the (1)s off.

Example:

readme.txt becomes readme(1).txt then readme(1)(1).txt ect...

I put a watch on a folder running process monitor and see a lot of "INVALID PARAMETER" errors coming from VMware-vmx.exe when it does the QueryRemoteProtocollInformation operation on the folder.

That is the process monitor logs where I can see explorer.exe running on the host renaming the file when I click refresh on the folder in the guest. And below is vmware interaction with the file just before the above.

1 thing that did change from old host to new is my company is actually enforcing bit locker on our hardware now so the drive with the virtual machine configs/hard drives and the shares are encrypted with bit locker. I haven't been able to find anything by just googling so hopefully one of you can help me out.

Thanks!

[xtelosx]

As an update. I set the shares to read only and am able to copy the files over to the guest and neither copy of the file gets the (1) appended to the file. My windows 10 guests seem to be able to read and write after reinstalling vmware tools.

I've uninstalled and reinstalled VMWare tools on the in 7 guests but that didn't seem to fix it there.

Copying the files over is an OK work around now ( i can connect a USB drive to the guest and copy it back to the host as needed with out getting the (1)s) but this definitely isn't a long term solution. I'll rebuild a win 10 guest with the software i need and trash the win 7 vm but that isn't a real good solution either.

[mhampto]

Does this issue appear when run the Host and/or guest form a Clean Boot? http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929135

[xtelosx · Accepted solution]

Took a while but this was traced to McAfee file and removable media protection seeing my secondary hard drive as a removable device and encrypting it at the software layer. Something in the interaction between a host file share and those software encrypted files caused the (1)s. I got McAfee to correctly see the drive as a local drive and right clicked the drive and selected decrypt from the McAfee menu then everything worked 100%. Our encryption team has no idea how the drive got flagged as a removable drive and encrypted but there you have it. A lost week of work :smileysilly: