Mirrored folders allow the Mac and the virtual machine to see the same content in certain personal data folders.
For example:
- Any content put on the Mac's desktop also appears on the Windows desktop, and vice versa.
- Any content put in the My Documents folder in Windows also appears in the Mac user's Documents folder, and vice versa.
The mirrored content resides on the Mac so that it is accessible even when the virtual machine is off. Mirrored folders work by redirecting where Windows looks for certain user folders (Desktop, Documents, Music, Pictures, Movies, and Downloads) from their default Windows locations to the corresponding locations on the Mac. It does this by means of registry redirects (much like Group Policy can redirect user folders to a network location).
Mirrored folders allows your Windows virtual machine to treat the Mac's Desktop, Documents, Music, Pictures, Movies, and Downloads folders as its own; it does not, however, let your Mac see the Windows default Desktop, My Documents, My Music, My Pictures, My Movies, or Downloads folders, and your Mac never has access to data saved on the Windows computer.
Note: Mirrored folders are not available in a Boot Camp virtual machine, since the Mac folders are not available when booted natively in Boot Camp. For more information about Boot Camp and Fusion, see
Working with VMware Fusion and Boot Camp partitions (1014515).
About shortcuts and aliases in a mirrored folder environmentShortcuts and aliases which are created on the Desktop will only work if opened from the corresponding operating system which knows how to handle that file type.
For example, a Mac application alias created on the Mac Desktop will be mirrored on the Windows Desktop (if the Desktop is mirrored). But if you try to open it from within Windows, Windows does not know how to handle the file because it does not recognize the file type.
Similarly, if a shortcut for a Windows application is created on the Windows Desktop, it also appears on the Mac Desktop. However, if you attempt to open it from the Mac side, it does not work because the Mac does not know how to handle a Windows shortcut.
In these situations, the files eventually become unusable, therefore best practice is to avoid creating shortcuts or aliases on either Desktop so that your Desktop does not become cluttered with unusable files.