VmWare Workstation 12.5.9: how to share folders between VMs?

While it is easy to set host folders to be shared with the VM, how to share folders between VMs?

1. Unlike the Vmware "Shared Folders" on Host machine, shared directory on Guest machine must be manually smb-shared; either via File Explorer - Properties - Sharing, or using net share command.
2. Then it is necessary to manually connect to it from other Guest machines; either in File Explorer, or using net use command.
3. Each Guest machine connected to Bridged network sees all other Guest and physical machines connected to the same network (including the Host machine).
4. Each Guest machine connected to NAT network sees all other Guest machines connected to the same network (and the Host machine); in addition, it sees all other Guest and physical machines connected to Bridged network (in this case, use ip addresses or hosts file or dns server).
(verb "sees" means here "can map shared directory on it")

1) use BRIDGED Networking on all the VM's.

Not necessary.

Note also you'll need to enable SMB1 on the Windows 10 machines

Not necessary, dangerous.

If you use (at least in VMWare) NAT networking the VM's (...) won't be able to access other things on your network by virtue of the fact that the VM's will have a "virtual" IP address.

Wrong.

So you need Bridged networking so the VM's act like physical machines with genuine IP addresses in your network.

Wrong.

There is nothing special about virtual machine's, you treat them the same as any computer.

Make sure they are on the same subnet as all the other computers on your network and follow any tutorial that you find for sharing folders.

Hi jimbo,

all what I said in post #3 is tested/used many times by me.

Bridged and NAT "networks" are in fact two network segments connected by NAT device - in this case by Vmware Host. You can take NAT device as "one-way router" (it is somewhat more complicated; NAT device changes/translates ip addresses in datagrams while transferring them from/to NAT segment); it allows to create tcp connections (or transfer udp requests/responses) from NAT segment to Bridged, but not vice versa (ip adresses at NAT segment are inaccessible from outside). In my picture in post #3 you can identify 3 different systems:

192.168.183.133 - VM at NAT segment
10.20.30.65 - VM at Bridged segment
192.168.183.2 - Vmware Host at NAT segment (it has more interfaces, its Ethernet/Bridged address is 10.20.30.64).

As you can see, there is no problem to show shares at 10.20.30.65 server from 192.168.183.133 client using net view command or traceroute through NAT device. Same for connecting to share by net use command.

Systems on "NAT nerwork" are "masqeraded" by NAT device using its own external ip address so other systems see all connections from NAT segment as originating from NAT device itself.

"Bridged network" is an extension of Ethernet segment for virtual machines so VMs and physical systems connected to them are mutually accessible. Of course, all of them, including physical ones, are accessible from NAT segment.

There is a common problem on any segmented network with computer names; by default, hostname/ipaddress advertisements are limited to current segment only. That is why either ip addresses (as in the picture) or name service must be used.

SMB1 is necessary if you have certan Linux VM's or Windows VM's older than W10.

Sorry but
- not true for Mint
- not true for Mac
- not true for Win7.
It can be true for some old NAS devices however see 1st post:
"I need to run a CMD command in a VM that would need the access of Windows folder from another VM."





Completely hijacked thread.. sigh
Apologies to butterfly.