VMWare WKS 15 - attaching devices -- great new feature

Hi there

I noticed using WKS 15 a great new feature -- a screen prompt comes up asking if you want to connect the device to the HOST or the VM. (Also you can drop down to choose the VM if you have several running).



Sometimes you want it to the HOST, sometimes to the VM - I like this as it saves messing around within the VM to attach the device. Similarly this method attaches the device to the HOST correctly whereas before sometimes you had to go into control panel -->administrative tools-->disk management and then add / change drive letter to access the device on the Host Windows system. Now it works perfectly (both as Host in current windows build and latest skippy).

Amazing how a little simple change makes this so much more easy to use. You don't always need to add mega complex new features to releases --although this release definitely as I previously pointed out is really a well worth while upgrade as everything about the GUEST machines run snappier - significantly too.

Cheers
jimbo

jimbo45 said:

Hi there
@cereberus

I use both HYPER-V and VMWare so advantages / disadvantages in both

Video capturing with HS capture hardware -- e.g Netflix. SKY TV etc though on a HYPER-V Guest isn't good -- !!!

As for Network sharing on VMWare you have 3 choices (plus customized which I haven't bothered with)

1) Host only -- that's just between HOST and the VM the VM is only accessible from the host - doesn't have any other network access other than shared drives (each way if you are also using RAW (Native OS file system on Guest) disks).

2) Bridged -- equivalent to HYPER-V External switch - VM has own IP address and obviously has full internet access etc.

3) NAT -- equivalent to HYPER-V default switch - VM has internet access but IP address ?? same as default switch.

Cheers
jimbo

Sure - I was only referring to disk access.

I just use gamebar to capture video in a VM and it works great.

I only use the default switch in Hyper-V as there is a nasty bug that affects Host download speeds since 1803 if using a bridge external switch. Only slight hassle is you cannot RDP to a vm using an external switch as it is behind a NAT firewall. I believe it is possible using powershell command to emulate port forwarding but have yet to work out how to do it.

Here is how I access all drives on Host from Hyper-V for Windows 10 Home.

You have to set up drives for network sharing of course.

No need to set up drives as offline to use them.

Hi there

@cereberus

It's a synch on VMWare - with any sort of network enabled - whether RAW (physical drives) or not you don't need to make any drives offline to windows to share with VM's. The fact I have some XFS formatted drives means windows doesn't read those anyway !! just passes straight through to the VM - Windows will show those as "uninitialized" but ignores unless you make a big bobo and format them !!!.

Attachment 206311

Basically same as your diagram - enable sharing on windows and on Linux guests set up sharing in SAMBA config

Here's a simple 2 machine network W10 Pro Host and one Linux Guest.

Windows HOST sees :



Linux VM sees:



As for video capture I am capturing it from the output of a Fire TV box and a SKY Q minibox (got a switch to switch the HDMI outputs and an HDMI splitter to split video into monitor for the actual real output from either box) and the other HDMI output goes into the hardware capture device. Then the software in windows captures the video (in 1080p format) to files.

Quality is the same as near as makes no difference to what I get if I'm watching directly from the relevant box (SKY Q or Amazon fire TV). I can also capture NETFLIX this way -- Netflix installed on amazon fire TV box.

Your capture mechanism is good but it's not as convenient as using the data direct from SKY Q / Amazon / Netflix itself - for SKY on the computer you can only use SKY GO which doesn't have as many options - also with the combination I'm using I can set up background record jobs for specific programs etc - also I can use the computer for other things while recording / capturing is processing in the background.

Also I can work totally on the VM while the capture device is trundling away on the HOST so I don't need to capture what's actually on the computer screen.

cheers
jimbo