Shared Folders as Local Folders on Guest O/S?

[Ben]

Hi,

We're running an application in our guest O/S (Windows XP), that pulls in
data, processes it, and spits it out again. However, it can't work with UNC
paths, it can only access local data. But the data needs to be stored on the
host O/S (Win2003 server) in a sub directory for security & backup reasons.
I have tried using the shared folders capability in VMWare, but this seems
it can only be accessed via the guest O/S using "\\.host\Shared Folders". I
don't really see what advantage method this give me over just sharing the
folder via Windows, and accessing it over UNC.
Is there anyway to have the shared folder, show up as a sub directory in the
guest O/S drive?
Someone I work with is positive he has done it before, but can't remember
how, and he was using VMware 4 at the time, we're now using 5.5.1.

Any help much appreciated

Ben

[lisbon_pt]

Hi

I have as host Windows XP PRO and as guest linux RedHat.

I have a shared folder in Windows (share), and I am able to do mount
(map drive in windows parlance) the windows shared folder to a linux
directory
( mount localhost:/share /mnt/ /mnt/hgfs )

and from that point you can access in linux /mnt/hgfs/share
as it where local to linux, but it indeed is in Win.

Couldn't you do such thing (like map drive) with windows?
Would it work? I would appreciate feedback if you try this. Thanks

Cheers

[Ben]

"lisbon_pt" <lisbo...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1140425810....@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...

Hi Lisbon,

Thanks for the reply

I had thought of this, however the problem with this, is the software we
use, runs as a service, and it can not always rely on a user being logged
on. And to map a network drive, will require a login. We need a solution
where the software can access a local drive, but does not require anyone to
login.

Ben