I've successfully created an XP Mode virtual machine inside a Windows 7 Pro (64-bit) Fusion vm. The XP Mode vmdk is 14 GB in size, which is manageable for a single vm, but quickly becomes unwieldy with multiple XP Mode vms, so I want to keep the XP Mode vm files in a shared folder on the Mac, instead of copying them into a Windows 7 folder each time I need to use one of them. The problem is that when I define a Fusion shared folder on the Mac's hd and try to open the XP Mode vm located in that folder, VMware Player tells me "VMware Player cannot open one of the virtual disks needed by this VM because it is larger than the maximum file size supported by the host file system" and refuses to start the vm. To summarize:
XP Mode vm located in a folder in the Windows 7 vm --> Works, but results in a very large Windows 7 vm for multiple XP Mode vms.
XP Mode vm located in a Fusion shared folder on the Mac --> Fails, would need to break up vmdk into 2 GB files.
XP Mode vm located in exactly the same folder on the Mac, but accessed using networking --> Works, but managing network connections can be problematic.
I don't know if this is a Fusion issue, a VMware Player issue, or a Windows 7 issue, but this seemed like the best place to start. Does anyone know of any settings I might have missed that would somehow convince VMware Player that the Fusion shared folder does in fact support files larger than 2 GB?
VMware Fusion Professional Version 6.0.3 (1747349)
VMware Player 6.0.1 build-1379776
Windows 7 Pro sp1 64-bit
MacBook Pro with OS X 10.9.2
Thanks in advance,
Richard