Shared Folders between OSX and guest OS

I understand in VMware they have a thing called Shared Folders which allows file sharing between the host OS and the guest OS. this might help so we can share data between the OS's.

I tried mapping the OSX drive as a network drive to the XP installation, and it wouldn't work. Tried mapping the XP drive over to the Mac side and that also failed. It appears that the bridged network won't allow this - it's as if the traffic between the two OS's never leaves the machine to go out on the network.

btw, I did verify that I can mount the XP drive under Parallels to another XP machine, and I can mount other Windows servers to the guest XP installation, and i cn mount other Windows servers to the host OSX installation. (hope that makes sense!)

 

I agree with this request. It's probably the most important issue for me. I prepare a lot of briefings and reports in OSX using Powerpoint, but I like to run them in a PC environment when I'm done to be sure everything is going to work right if it's played on a Windows machine. The ideal thing would be able to drag and drop at least into a shared folder in either direction.

 

I had no problems setting up file sharing (windows sharing) between WinXP guest OS and OSX host OS. Assuming your guest OS is already on your LAN, I only did the following:

1. Enabled Windows Sharing in System Preferences->Sharing->Services in OSX host OS.
2. Enabled an account in System Preferences->Sharing->Services in OSX host OS.
3. Mapped network drive in WinXP guest OS in the form \\<IP>\<USER> as shown at the bottom of System Preferences->Sharing->Services.
4. View contents of <USER>'s home directory.
5. Adjust permissions in OSX host OS as necessary.

 

VMware's Shared Folders do exactly the same thing as a network share. They are accessed via a special entry in the My Network Places, and must be mapped exactly the same way as any other networked drive to reference them with a drive letter. I found it to be of little use to duplicate what was already there in Network, and have the same overhead needing to do folder mapping.