Change the working directory of a virtual machine

The working directory is where VMware Player stores suspended state (<VM name>.vmss), snapshot (<VM name>.vmsn), virtual machine paging (<VM name>.vmem), and redo log files for a virtual machine. By default, this directory is the same as where the virtual machine files are stored.

The working directory can be changed in order to improve performance. For example, you can create a paging file on a fast disk that has a lot of disk space but leave the virtual disk and configuration file on a different disk.

Here are the steps to change the working directory of a virtual machine in VMware Player:

1. Power off the virtual machine.

2. Select the virtual machine from the library and go to Player > Manage > Virtual Machine Settings:

vm settings working directory

3. Go to the Options tab and select General. Under the Working directory field, browse to the location of the new working directory and click OK:

vm settings working directory browse

 

Changing the working directory does not change the directory where the virtual machine configuration file ( .vmx) or the log files are stored.
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