Workstation 8 "could not find shared vm path"

[luisarnauth]

Hello all,

Had this error while trying to share a VM in Workstation 8 "could not find shared vm path".

The way i solved was by disabling sharing (Edit -> Preferences -> Shared VMs), editing the datastores.xml file (C:\ProgramData\VMware\hostd) to something like (in red):

<ConfigRoot>
  <LocalDatastores>
    <_length>1</_length>
    <_type>hostd.host.LocalDatastoreEntry[]</_type>
    <e id="0">
      <_type>hostd.host.LocalDatastoreEntry</_type>
      <id>1</id>
      <name>standard</name>
      <path>C:\VMware-Shared</path>
    </e>
  </LocalDatastores>
  <NasVolumes>
    <_length>0</_length>
    <_type>hostd.host.NasDatastoreEntry[]</_type>
  </NasVolumes>
</ConfigRoot>

Enabled again the Shared VMs feature without a problem.

Hope that helps someone.

Luis Arnauth

[cowwoc]

This issue remains unresolved as of Workstation 9.0.0 build-812388

[continuum]

what do you mean with "this issue" ???

[cowwoc]

Ulli Hankeln wrote:

what do you mean with "this issue" ???

I mean the issue where VM Shared Path gets grayed out and you cannot select a new path without editing the XML file directly.

Gili

[continuum]

whats the problem with editing the xml ?

[cowwoc]

There is no problem editing the XML file. The point is we shouldn't have to do that in the first place. If the user picks an invalid path using the GUI, he should be able to correct it. Preventing path selection is a bug that needs to be fixed.

[jjfad]

same thing happening on 9.0.1 build-894247

Shared VMs location greyed out and can't access the browse button to reassign different folder. My folder was located on the network on mapped drive. It was selected using file manager so I couldn't have put in a wrong path. Seems like a bug to me.

[admin]

This does seem like a bug. We will work on fixing it in a future version of WS.

[nippes]

has this been fixed in 9.0.2?

i still have the problem, but i can't find any datastores.xml. so i can't even use the workaround.

could please someone tell me where the datastores.xml is stored?

[cowwoc]

datastore.xml (no "s") can be found at C:\ProgramData\VMware\hostd

No idea if it's been fixed in newer versions.

Gili

[nippes]

i'm using a german windows 7 and there is no c:\programdata in the explorer. it's mapped to something else. like c:\users is mapped to c:\benutzer. 😞

that's why i didn't see it at first sight. one has to enter it in the url bar.  

and well it seems to be still not fixed in 9.0.2.

[CommonOne]

Hey guys,

I was able to run the Original Installer and then a Repair and that resolved my issue. I, too was unable to resolve this using the Datastore file. I'm using the Workstation 9. Hope this helps.