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VMware Fusion 11.5 Mac - Windows is completely read-only

I'm using VMware Fusion 11.5 on macOS Catalina to run a Windows 10 machine, and two days ago every folder in the VM went read-only and stayed that way. I tried changing permissions, changing file and local drive ownership, resetting windows, reinstalling windows from scratch, reinstalling vmware from scratch, restoring from a backup, and sanitizing everything to do with VMware or windows from my computer and reinstalling everything AGAIN. I have been throwing spaghetti at the wall for 48 hours, and *nothing*. Everything is read-only, and every time I set it to read-write it doesn't work. Shared folders, C drive, program files, everything. I'm at my wit's end. Does anybody know what causes this problem and how to fix it?

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GFCN
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I ended up giving up, overwriting my hard drive, and reinstalling everything piecemeal. It works now, which makes me wonder if it wasn't some kind of malware, but I don't think I'll ever know what happened.

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GFCN
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Update: I've tried downgrading to VMware 10, deleting every .lck file I can find, switching the Virtual Machine folder location, and screaming at the heavens. Somehow, everything is still read-only.

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dariusd
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Hi GFCN,

That sounds like a frustrating situation.  Just to be 100% sure that we understand the problem, please give one or more specific examples of the problem you are seeing, i.e. the steps you are following when the problem occurs, and what you are seeing on the screen, and what you're expecting to see.  The forum allows you to insert pictures, so perhaps grab a screenshot and include that.

Is there anything else you can think of which happened (or changed) at the time – on the host Mac or in the virtual machine – which could be related to the problem?

It is weird that this could happen in a new virtual machine as well, since the new virtual machine was presumably not read-only at the time you installed the OS and its applications, so it sounds like something happened towards the end of the installation process which has caused the problem... but I have no idea at this stage what that could be.

Screaming at the heavens is definitely part of my regular troubleshooting toolkit, but I have not tried throwing spaghetti at the wall.  I'll keep that option in mind for the future.  :smileygrin:

Thanks,

--

Darius

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ColoradoMarmot
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So this is inside the guest?  If so, it's probably a windows problem (or malware), not a Fusion one.

Did you potentially login as a non-admin user?

GFCN
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I ended up giving up, overwriting my hard drive, and reinstalling everything piecemeal. It works now, which makes me wonder if it wasn't some kind of malware, but I don't think I'll ever know what happened.

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GFCN
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Yes, I tried making a few new accounts (some admin, some not) and the problem persisted.

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DAlanStewart
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I seem to have something similar with Fusion 11.5.3. Every folder I have checked across three VMs, running two different versions of Windows, 7 & 10, are reported as being read-only by the Windows GUI. This is true for both the 'local' VM hard drive and a VMWare shared folder that I use from all the VMs. However, they are not actually read-only. I can copy files into them or create new files by copy and pasting an existing file. I have shutdown all VMs, quit VMWare, and rebooted the host Mac, and this weird behavior continues.

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DAlanStewart
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Today I'm going through this hell again and can't remember how I go out of it last time. And I didn't post it here, my bad.

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DAlanStewart
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Uninstalling 11.5.3 and re-installing did not work. I cannot upgrade past 11.5.3 because my hardware is too old - I can only run Mac OS 10.13. I think I am screwed.

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