VMware workstation windows host shared folders issue

Question

My laptop is a Linux mint powered host and a windows 8 guest via VMware Workstation. Yesterday, I get the bad and stupid idea to upgrade my windows 8 to windows 8.1 final release, using the Installer from the ISO.

After everything installed, I logged into my guest windows 8.1, and surprise, I can't map VMWare Shared Folders as network drive, or simply see, as I could before, "vmware-host" in the list of network locations.

I supposed it could be an issue related to the "TrustedInstaller" user folders ownership, so I tried to update the ownership of system files to the "Administrators" group, but nothing changed.

Anyone has an idea of what can I do, before totally deleting my VM and start again with a new one from scratch? Thanks in advance

Solution 1

First re-install the VMWare tool in the VM, either do a repair or un-install then install. After that goto settings and make sure the shared folders are "On" The shared folders are now available via: \vmware-host\Shared Folders For easy access in older Windows programs I created a mapped drive e.g. Z: to \vmware-host\Shared Folders

Solution 2

In my case, this issue was resolved when I installed the new version 9.6.1 of VMware Tools for Windows (Pre 2000) 9.6.1.

(My former work-around - which worked - was to configure a samba drive on my host and access it through the virtual network on my windows 8.1 guest.)

Comments

[Zoredache]

What version of Vmware Workstation? They just released v10 which offers Windows 8.1 support. The Vmware tools probably get updated, and the Guest drivers.

[Hoghweed]

I'm using vmware 10, I know a clean vm windows 8.1 works as a sugar, but my problem has begun after I updated my guest windows 8 to windows 8.1 using the installer

[Brian]

After installing the VMWare tools you can shutdown the VM, edit the .VMX file replacing all occurances of "e1000e" with "vmxnet3" then see if things improve. This switches from an emulated Intel network card to a VMware paravirtualized NIC.

[magicandre1981]

reinstall the vmware tools in the VM.

[Hoghweed]

@magicandre1981 I've done three times but nothing changed.. I saw, while googlin about, thet the problem could be caused by a different set of permission given from the upgrade process...