Contents
Sharing Virtual Machines
with Other Users
If you intend to have other users access your virtual machines, you should consider
the following points:
- On Windows hosts, the virtual machine files should be in a location on a system that is accessible to those users. When you create a virtual machine, by default all the files associated with it are placed in C:\Documents and Settings\<user name>\My Documents\My Virtual Machines. Other users typically do not have access to this folder. When you configure the virtual machine in the New Virtual Machine Wizard, you can specify a location for the virtual machine elsewhere on your system or on the network.
- On Linux hosts, permissions for the virtual machine files - especially the configuration file (.vmx) and virtual disks (.vmdk) - should be set for other users according to how you want them to use the virtual machine. For instance, if you want users to run a virtual machine but not be able to modify its configuration, do not make the configuration file writable.
- If your virtual machine was created under VMware Workstation 3 or another VMware product and uses disks in nonpersistent mode, you should consider changing the location of the redo-log file, since by default it is placed in your temp directory, to which other users may not have access (redo-log files for disks in undoable mode are placed in the same directory as the virtual machine's configuration file). To change the location of the redo-log file, take the following steps.
- With the virtual machine powered off, open the virtual machine settings editor. Choose VM > Settings.
- Click the Options tab.
- Click Browse and select a directory that is shared with other users.
- Click OK to save the change and close the virtual machine settings editor.
Note: VMware Workstation 3 virtual machines with disks in nonpersistent mode
perform better when the redo-log files for those disks are located in the system's
temp directory.
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