i am running fusion3 on my imac 27 inch with snow leopard. i am trying to access a single virtual pc (running windows 7 ultimate) from two different accounts on my mac. unfortunately, it would appear that i must load a different version of windows 7 from each of my snow leopard accounts. i cannot seem to access a single common version of windows 7 from each account. any suggestions?
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vmware fusion3 with multiple users
- Thread starter photonut
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I'm not as experienced with Fusion as I am with other VMWare products, but I've used the linux version of VMWare Workstation extensively. The thing you have to keep in mind is that Mac OSX is a bsd unix environment at its base. When you log in as a different user, you are restricted to the files you own or have group access to. Unless you run something as an admin (requiring your password), usually you can't access another users files.
Like any good application, when VMWare creates its vm files, it obeys the system settings for security. Therefore the files for your vm are "owned" by the user you log in as. There are also the restrictions on the directories your files are located in.
If you wish to share a VM, you need to do a bit of pre-planning. First, you will want to set up a common directory that the users you want to have access to the vm have full access rights to. Second, when you create your vm, you want to make sure that all users can read/write the files associated with the VM.
Third, if you have more than one of your users logged in simultaneously, remember: the first user to start a vm creates a lockfile. If vmware crashes as the other user or you try to start up the second user in the same vm as the first, you'll get a lock message on the second user.
Like I said, I've only created a couple VMs with fusion, and never tried to copy or share those VMs, but usually when you're having access problems, it falls to file and folder permissions and locations.
Later,
PV.
Like any good application, when VMWare creates its vm files, it obeys the system settings for security. Therefore the files for your vm are "owned" by the user you log in as. There are also the restrictions on the directories your files are located in.
If you wish to share a VM, you need to do a bit of pre-planning. First, you will want to set up a common directory that the users you want to have access to the vm have full access rights to. Second, when you create your vm, you want to make sure that all users can read/write the files associated with the VM.
Third, if you have more than one of your users logged in simultaneously, remember: the first user to start a vm creates a lockfile. If vmware crashes as the other user or you try to start up the second user in the same vm as the first, you'll get a lock message on the second user.
Like I said, I've only created a couple VMs with fusion, and never tried to copy or share those VMs, but usually when you're having access problems, it falls to file and folder permissions and locations.
Later,
PV.
I'm not sure I fully understand the issue (its monday morning after all 
)
Why not make sure the virtual machines folder that vmware holds the guest OS files in a location that all user accounts can access and make sure the permissions of the file/folders is such that everyone can read/write to them. That sounds like it would work.
)Why not make sure the virtual machines folder that vmware holds the guest OS files in a location that all user accounts can access and make sure the permissions of the file/folders is such that everyone can read/write to them. That sounds like it would work.
Create a folder off the root, called VM or Virtual Machines
Move/copy the contents of ~/Documents/Virtual Machines to that one
Right click the folder and select Get Info and set or make sure everyone has permission to the folder and files
go into the Folder
Double click the VM you want to start up. Fusion will auto start and load that vm
Move/copy the contents of ~/Documents/Virtual Machines to that one
Right click the folder and select Get Info and set or make sure everyone has permission to the folder and files
go into the Folder
Double click the VM you want to start up. Fusion will auto start and load that vm
thanks for the detailed suggestions. i have followed all of the steps and i gave all users read/write permission for both the new root based virtual machine directory and the windows 7 file within it. unfortunately users other than i still get the error message "unable to open file. insufficient permission to access file"!
Try right clicking the file and then select show contents, you'll then see a bunch of files at that point. Check out those permissins.
***Warning at this point, I'd be careful at what you do. I'd be real careful because you don't want to make your VM non-functioning for everyone.
the only flies i can grant read/write permissions to are for the virtual machine itself and to windows7. no files within windows 7 can be further selected or highlighted. any more suggestions? thanks for all the help so far!
VMware has a document about this titled A Beginner's Guide to VMware Fusion. You need to scroll down to the section about sharing vm's and it will tell you the following:
As you can see you actually need to do 2 things: 1. move it to some place where both users can access it and 2. make sure both users have the rights to access it.
As you can see you actually need to do 2 things: 1. move it to some place where both users can access it and 2. make sure both users have the rights to access it.
i actually activated and opened the root directory in unix. moving the vmware fusion to that root directory did not work. after this failed, i closed down the unix root directory. i next moved the vmware fusion to a directory under "macintosh hard drive" (assming this is what you actually meant by the "root directory"). after moving the software to this root, i am still the only user with access to the vmware software, even though full vmware and windows7 permissions were granted to the other users. lastly, i moved vmware fusion to the common "users/shared" directory and again made sure read write permissions were granted to all users in vmware and also the windows7 file. still, only i can access the virtual machine; even when i log out completely, other users are denied access to the virtual machine. one thing of interest: after i temporarily moved the vmware software and (associated windows 7 virtual machine) to the various other locations on my hard drive, i noticed that when i logged off of my account and into the other user accounts (they have full admin privileges as do i), the location of the vmware software did not appear to match the location in my account! the software remained in the original location. logging back into my account, however, everything appeared to be located in the new, proper directory! should i move the vmware software twice, once in my account and again in the other user account?? this makes no sense to me!
From the vmware website, vmware fusion knowledge base:
Sharing a virtual machine between users in the Mac OS
Purpose
This article provides steps for locating and accessing a virtual machine from multiple user accounts in Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard) & 10.6 (Snow Leopard).
Resolution
To be able to locate and access virtual machine from other users in Leopard:
1. Log in as a user with administrative rights.
2. Copy your virtual machine from /Users/< User Name>/Documents/Virtual Machine to Local Mac HDD .
3. Right-click .vmwarevm and choose Get Info.
4. Click Details.
5. From File & Extension remove the .vmwarevm extension. This file now displays as a folder.
6. Right-click the folder and choose Get Info.\
7. Select Everyone and ensure the Privilege is set to Read & Write.
8. Click the arrow next to + - and click Apply to enclosed item. The system prompts for authentication.
9. Enter your User ID and Password.
10. Change the package extension to .vmwarevm .
11. Close the Get Info dialog.
12. Log off your account and log in to another account.
13. Launch VMware Fusion and run the virtual machine from the Local Mac HDD.
hanvair:
i tried your algorithim with a single minor variation: (i moved the mvware fusion file to the macintosh hard drive instead of copying the file). the program works fine from my login account on the mac. however, when i try to run the fusion software from any other account, i get the error "the virtual machine appears to be in use". this error occurs even when i close the fusion program on my account.
any other suggestions would be appreciated!
i tried your algorithim with a single minor variation: (i moved the mvware fusion file to the macintosh hard drive instead of copying the file). the program works fine from my login account on the mac. however, when i try to run the fusion software from any other account, i get the error "the virtual machine appears to be in use". this error occurs even when i close the fusion program on my account.
any other suggestions would be appreciated!
Are you suspending or shutting Windows down before you quit VMWare Fusion? If you are suspending Windows -- rather than selecting Shut Down from the Windows Start menu -- before you quit Fusion that would explain your error when other users try to access it. It's not enough to just quit Fusion.
This is easy to fix as follows:
- Be sure to shutdown Fusion.
- Browse to the vm file, rightclick it and select "show package contents".
- In the new window look for files and directories ending in .lck and remove those.
- Start Fusion and resume your vm.
Next time be sure to shutdown the vm properly before copying or moving it or switching to another user account. This will prevent issues like these. The link a gave in a previous reply lists the following warning:
I don't think snapshotting will be a problem though.