I have no experience with Vmware. If you click on "Places," do you see an entry
which looks like "nnn GB Filesystem"? If so, click on it and look around to see
all the XP folders, not just shared folders.

Thanks. Under places do not see any "nnn GB Filesysem". Will keep searching if
anyone has found a solution to this.

You need to go to the VMware site and download their client first. Then
installing it is not a piece of cake. I would recommend VirtualBox which has
more features and is easier to install by far. Unless of course you need
VMware for a particular reason, then you will have to undergo the pain.

I am running this under vmware already. Did not understand why you wanted
me to download code again. Thanks anyway. I tried virtualbox once long time ago.
Might go there if I find no solution to this issue.

Does virtualbox running on windows allow to share your windows folders with your
Linux guests? That is what I am looking for. Thank you.

I'd give Virtual Box the thumbs up too over VMWare. Have tried them
both and VBox is the one that's been the better one for me, and of
course VMWare isn't free but if it had been the better one I'd have
probably bought it. However, the version of Virtual Box in the
repositories doesn't have USB support so it's as well getting it
direct from VBox themselves - it's just a double click to install the
binary for Ubuntu

Like all virtual systems, it takes a little while getting used to how
they operate and share resources with the host OS. Not onerous, just a
case of working through it - and there's plenty of help around if it's
needed of course

From the reviews I read (and I get a lot) it seems that VB is winning lots
of friends and is given a big edge over VMWare in terms of ease of use and
features. However, there are many reasons to choose VMWare, particularly if
that is what your business uses or you are using appliances made for VMWare.
However, their fees are steep and out of league for the average user. The
free version cannot compare with VB, IMO, and setting it up is a nightmare
for newbies.

I too agree that Virtual Box is better than VMware generally speaking, but
this DOES NOT (in my opinion) hold true if you are using a windows host.
VBox seems to have a number of stability issues on window that makes it
quite risky to me if you want anything reliable. While VMware is a bit more
of a pain and a little less "full featured", it is a better option to run
linux on Windows as of 2009 when I last updated it. VBox is constantly
crashing, locking, and "faulting/erroring" when I try to restore from a
saved or paused state. I've tried 3.x and 4.x versions on XP and Win7,
respectively, and had similar results.

fwiw, setting up shared "network" folders is another way to go about sharing
data between the guest and host, and if you have VMplayer instead of the
paid version, maybe it is the only way?

I've done this in the past with vmware. It's been a while, but I found
instrctions on the web searching for something like "vmware share
ubuntu folders on windows host.". Sorry I don't remember more at the
moment.

Atlast, atlast...after days of struggle and research found the solution.

My environment: Windows/XP Host and Guest: Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwahl under old
vmware player 2.05

In terminal mode:

sudo mkdir myshare ( under /mnt/hgfs )

sudo apt-get install open-vm-tools
sudo apt-get install open-vm-dkms

(once above completed successfully)

Tested mounting the share.

sudo mount -t vmhgfs .host:/MYSHARE/ /mnt/hgfs/myshare -rw

(once the mount was successful, go into Places ---> Computer ---> File System
(and find directory mnt/hgfs and you should find your shared folders)

Now that all is good edit /etc/fstab

gksu gedit /etc/fstab (and to the end add these lines..)

.host:/MYSHARE/ /mnt/hgfs/myshare vmhgfs defaults,ttl=5,uid=1000,gid=1000 0 0

MYSHARE in above statement is my Share Name in VMX configuration file or my
windows shared folders.

Now shutdown Ubuntu and Reload under vmware. Yiphee, worked fine.

Disclaimer: These instructions worked fine for me ...don't know about you. Good
Luck!