Map command not available?

[rio8134]

The Utilities->Map command is not available for my virtual hard disks (vmdk) in VMware-player-4.0.0-471780. In VMware-player-3.1.4-385536 the Utilities->Map command was available, but I won't go back to that version.

I'm aware of:

You cannot map a virtual disk if the VMware Player installation path  contains characters from a non-system language. In this case, the error  message Failed to initialize library for mounting and unmounting virtual disks appears and the Utilities > Map option becomes unavailable.
Workaround: Install VMware VMware Player 3.0  in a directory path that contains only characters from a local-system language.

from

http://www.vmware.com/support/player30/doc/releasenotes_player3.html

but my VMWare Player is installed in Program Files (x86) and all the virtual machine pathes are plain latin alphabet.

Thanks for orientation and help.

------------

added:

I regressed to VMware-player 3.1.4 just to see, and indeed Utilities > Map is still present in 3.1.4, on the very same host OS which is Windows 7 Home Premium (german). But I need Utilities > Map in version 4 and it is in the help file etc.

Peter (rio8134)

[FranckRookie]

Hi Peter,

It seems that you're not the only one having the problem.

First of all, did you check that you respect all prerequisites? Here is an extract of Player's documentation:

• Power off all virtual machines that use the virtual disk.
  

• Verify that the virtual disk (.vmdk) files on the virtual disk are not compressed and do not have read-only permissions.
• On a Windows host, verify that the volume is formatted with FAT (12/16/32) or NTFS. Only FAT (12/16/32) and NTFS formatting is supported. If the virtual disk has mixed partitions, for example, one partition is formatted with a Linux operating system and another partition is formatted with a Windows operating system, you can map the Windows partition only.

• Verify that the virtual disk is unencrypted. You cannot map or mount encrypted disks.

My Player doesn't exhibit this problem. I am on XP Pro 32-bit and I tested with Player 4.0 and 4.01 . I use an Admin account. And I use different guest OS: XP, 2003, 2008, Seven, Ubuntu either 32-bit or 64-bit...

Good luck.

Regards

Franck

[PantherIT]

Hi Guys,

I'm still having this problem and I meet all of those requirements. I even uninstalled VMware Player from Program Files (x86) and just installed into the same path in Program Files, but that still didn't help.

Any more ideas people?

Many thanks,

Tim.

[FranckRookie]

I just made another test on a Windows 2008 R2. And the Map menu is not available! Could it be because it's a 64-bit system?

Could someone tell us if it works on its 64-bit Windows OS?

Franck

[PantherIT]

OK, I found the problem, it is UAC (User Access Control). If you run VMware Player as Administrator, the Map command is available, but it gives an error when you try to map it. This is apparently because you can't map a drive as Administrator and then have access to it through your normal login. I found this out while trying to map it with the vmware_mount.exe command.

It would appear that it needs to be run as Administrator to get the Map command, but the Map command is useless when run as Administrator, go figure.

The only way I found to get around this is to disable UAC completely. Once I did that, the command is there and it works a treat.

Have fun!

Tim.

[continuum]

download the VDDK-kit - it has a vmware-mount executable that IMHO works better than the buildin tool

[PantherIT]

Yes, the VMware-mount didn't work with UAC enabled either. If you ran it as the user it gave an error. If you ran it as Admin, it seemed to work, but the drive didn't appear.

--

Tim Carter

Panther IT

Always leaving you Happy!

www.pantherit.co.uk<http://www.pantherit.co.uk>; - tc@pantherit.co.uk<mailto:tc@pantherit.co.uk> - 07970 036 124

[continuum]

try to start explorer from the same cmd as you used to run vmware-mouny.exe

[rio8134]

The Map command used to work in VMware Player 3.1.4 and VMware Player 3.1.5 . It is great to learn that the Map command reacts to UAC in VMware Player 4.0.x. I prefer not to use VDDK just because of the rare Map command needs. I hope the Map command issue is just a bug and comes to live again.

My solution is to use drag-and-drop integration between the guest and host, for virtual Windows 7. For virtual Windows98, I'll include its disk in some virtual Win7 guest and again use drag-and-drop from the Win7 guest system.

The other viable option are shared folders, again for Windows 7 and XP, and for Windows 98 including its disk in an higher virtual machine should do it..

I sincerely say thanks to everyone for your participation.

Peter

edited:

Regarding Windows 98 integration: Copying files from the host to the Windows 98 guest works plain vanilla (!) . Taking files from the windows 98 disk to the host requires the bypass, i.e. include the windows 98 disk in a windows 7 guest. I just verified that it works.

Message was edited by: rio8134