You can change the working directory for a virtual machine. The working directory is where Workstation Player stores suspended state (.vmss), snapshot (.vmsn), and virtual machine paging (.vmem) files. By default, the working directory is where the virtual machine files are stored.

To specify a new working directory for a selected virtual machine, select Player > Manage > Virtual Machine Settings, click the Options tab, and select General.

You might want to change the working directory in the following situations.

  • To run a virtual machine that is stored on a network share or iPod, which might slow performance, you can change the working directory to your local hard disk.
  • To create a paging file on a fast disk with a lot of disk space but leave the virtual disk and configuration file on a different disk, you can change the working directory so that it is located on the fast disk.

Changing the working directory does not change the directory where Workstation Player stores the virtual machine configuration (.vmx) file and log files.

The virtual machine must be powered off when you change this setting.