Releasing files locked by Shared Folders feature

I make a lot of use from VMWare Workstation's Shared Folders feature: You set a folder on host machine as shared for guest OS, and you can access it on guest, in similar way as a SMB share (read-only or read-write).

The thing that annoys me is that after copying a couple of files from hots to guest, Workstation locks these files from writing, even if the share is set as read-only.

This is especially annoying in often scenario when I'm trying to debug/use a script on guest while I'm still editing it on host.

So far the only ways I know how to make Workstation release these files are:

• suspending the guest machine: that's a terrible pseudo-workaround. It's slow (especially with higher amount of guest RAM) and sometimes the interruption may not be welcome
• copying amount of some random other files, hoping that Workstation has an internal limit on amount of files it would lock: such hack that might useful regularly only if we knew the amount ant it was small

So what are some good ways to make Workstation release those files?

Or alternatively, how to avoid locking them in the first place?

Edit: I did not make few things clear:

• I know that it's Workstation (vmware-vmx.exe) that is locking these files (probably due to some internal buffering)

• I don't want to release the files by force. I tried that, but releasing them by force makes machine unstable, which I cannot afford

Apparently this is caused by a bug in Workstation.

Solution 1:

This appears to be a bug in VMWare, so there is no need to check a 3-rd party antiviral software or use unlockers - all the latter break normal functioning of VMWare Workstation itself.

Multiple threads on the VMWare forum addresses the same problem. For example:

• Shared Folders option is locking files
• XP VM Does not release exclusive locks on Host files

The only solution which works is mentioned in the posts by Loren Pechtel, so all credits should go to her: you should access ("touch") the locked file from the guest system.

For example, I open and close the locked file properties from Windows Explorer in the guest. This is enough to drop the lock in the host.

Solution 2:

I ran into the same problem using a script to copy files from a shared host folder to my client. Ended up with locked files on the host. The easiest way to get around this is to do as others have posted before, access the host file from the client using a command.

For me I used "attrib -r HOST_FILE" in my script after copying host file. Since I mounted my shared folder as read only this did nothing but DID clear the lock.