This may not be related but I fixed a problem I was having with Sonoma by turning off Full Keyboard Access under the Accessibility Settings in Systems Setting on my Mac. 

For me it was already off. If I put it on, the vm does not start at all. Something else is the issue.

vmware's support engineer informed me that it's a) not supported (neither are drag and drop/copy) and that b) an update was scheduled for September.

A sandboxed virtualisation tends to miss the point...

ok, thanks.

So a fix for this was due in September?

This is very elementary and makes Fusion unusable...

Drag & drop would be nice.

If you’re using Windows VMs, you’d be better off with the 2023 Tech Preview. It’s a public beta of the next version. It has Tools that support copy/paste/drag/drop.  Using SMB file sharing (configuring the Mac for Windows file sharing) is a still needed as a workaround to the lack of shared folders but it’s quite functional and not hard to set up.

IMO the VMware support engineer mis-spoke about when the next Fusion release is going to occur. VMware has stated that VMware shared folders will be a part of the next Fusion release. They did not commit to a release in September. We’re still waiting for the release.

Sounds promising, Will google for the techpreview, that is Windows ARM preview then?

No, not Windows 11 ARM preview. The Fusion 2023 Tech Preview. You can find information about it here https://communities.vmware.com/t5/Fusion-2023-Tech-Preview/ct-p/fusion2023

Also, you may wish to refer to the unofficial companion guide for the Tech Preview found here: https://communities.vmware.com/t5/Fusion-2023-Tech-Preview/The-Unofficial-Fusion-2023-Tech-Preview-C...

Tried it out, but I have the same issue with VMW 2023 TechPreview as with 13.02.

Double check on the Mac side, it'll work if you configure it right.

There are no anonymous shares that the Mac assigns so you are going to have to configure the Mac file sharing to use  a username (usually your own username) as able to use Windows file sharing. You do that with System Settings > General > Sharing > File Sharing,

 Configure the folders you want to share in the area provided in the File Sharing settings. 

Note that you will need to use your "short account name" for your account when connecting from Windows.  You can find your short usiername by opening a terminal session and typing:

yourname@Upstairs ~ % who am i
yourname     ttys000      Oct 13 15:49 

In this case, your short username is "yourname".

This what I did, but no success. Does not accept the password, even if it shows it to be exactly the same.

I also created a new VM from scratch with TechPreview.

Still no success.

Could this depend on keyboards settings/localization?

Though it shows the password I have typed is right.

Only thing that I change in settings different from 100% vanilla installation is the localization/keyboard settings (finnish, not english)!

Installed official 13.5.

Still the same issue!

Installation went otherwise quite smoothly.

(Had to copy app first to desktop to get it installed without crashing... )

Was that antivirus in the host or VM that you uninstalled?

It was on the host, the mac.

Almost sounds like your Mac antivirus was blocking network ports needed for Windows file sharing. I've had that happen with Norton 360 for Mac (I do not hold Norton or Symantec products for Mac in very high regard by the way)...

yes, definitely.

It was 3rd party, F-Secure Total.