File copy to/from Remote Desktop Connection and/or VMWare

[highend]

I just tried Total Commander, Q-Dir and Directory Opus as a target in the physical machine and pasting a file from the virtual machine doesn't cause any problems in either of them so it doesn't seem to be a "generic clipboard problem".

[highend]

Any way to reproduce this with Virtualbox?

It's impossible to reproduce this with VBox... It's clipboard sharing doesn't support files or folders^^

[admin]

Any way to reproduce this with Virtualbox?

It's impossible to reproduce this with VBox... It's clipboard sharing doesn't support files or folders^^

OK; can you think of any way I could detect whether the current clipboard is from VMWare? In that case I could force a shell paste (instead of XY's native paste) which should work (because I'm sure all other FMs do it that way).

[ale]

OK; can you think of any way I could detect whether the current clipboard is from VMWare? In that case I could force a shell paste (instead of XY's native paste) which should work (because I'm sure all other FMs do it that way).

What about triggering a shell paste if the file names in CF_HDROP contain "VMwareDnD"?

[admin]

OK; can you think of any way I could detect whether the current clipboard is from VMWare? In that case I could force a shell paste (instead of XY's native paste) which should work (because I'm sure all other FMs do it that way).

What about triggering a shell paste if the file names in CF_HDROP contain "VMwareDnD"?

Too hardcoded for my taste.

Also, I just saw that I spoke too soon. This needs more thinking. I will have to come back to this later.

[admin]

This (next version) should at least improve the situation until the cause of the non-existing source items is fully understood:

Code: Select all

    * Custom Copy: Now you get an error message when a source item does 
      not exist in the moment of attempted copy. Before, non-existing 
      source items were simply skipped without notice.

[admin]

This (next version) should at least improve the situation until the cause of the non-existing source items is fully understood:

Code: Select all

    * Custom Copy: Now you get an error message when a source item does 
      not exist in the moment of attempted copy. Before, non-existing 
      source items were simply skipped without notice.

Do you get an error now?

[grindax]

.

[admin]

Wonderful. Next time we can see why the source file disappears too early.

[ale]

Sample error message

Code: Select all

Custom Copy from 25/02/2012 16:10:34

From: C:\Users\ALESSA~1\AppData\Local\Temp\VMwareDnD\3be52dca\
To:   C:\Users\Alessandro\Desktop\

Files processed: 1 total: 0 new, 0 over, 0 skip, 1 fail
Bytes copied:    0 bytes
Transfer rate:   141 files/sec
Remarks:         Custom Copy completed in 8,7 ms.
Warnings:        There has been 1 failed file.

------------------------------------------------------------

All processed files:

FAIL (other reasons)       New  C:\Users\ALESSA~1\AppData\Local\Temp\VMwareDnD\3be52dca\XYplorer_10.80_Install.exe -> C:\Users\Alessandro\Desktop\XYplorer_10.80_Install.exe | Impossibile trovare il percorso specificato.

Here the attempt was to copy the file (XYplorer setup file) from the desktop of the real system to the desktop of the virtualized system. XYplorer fails because there's nothing in the temp location, if we perform the operation with Explorer instead, on paste, a two steps thing happen: firstly the file is transferred by VMware from the desktop of the real system to the temp location (of the virtual machine file system), then Explorer (the one running inside the VM) copies it from the temp location to the desktop.

[admin]

Yes, and some process removes the file from the temp location when it assumes the copy has happened. Unfortunately this seems to happen before XY has a chance to copy the file. The question is why.

[ale]

Mh I think that maybe I didn't manage to explain how it works
Suppose we perform a copy of a file on the real system (Ctrl+C), and let's look at the clipboard on the real system, there's a CF_HDROP which holds the full path/name to the file on the real system. Ok it's clear. Now we focus on the virtual machine. Let's examine the clipboard of the virtual machine. The CF_HDROP data is different, the path/name of the file of course can't refer to the file system of the real system, instead it refers to the file system of the virtualized Windows and specifically contains a path with a "VMwareDND" folder, like a sample here in the topic. At this point this path/name in the virtual system does not exist, it is only a kind of placeholder in the CF_HDROP, no data has ben transferred at all. Now the difference begins if we perform the paste operation with XYplorer or Explorer (both running inside the VM). On paste if we use XYplorer, VMware does nothing and XYplorer (I think) looks at the CF_HDROP and tries to read the data but it fails because there's no data at all in the temp location. Nothing has been transferred from the real system to the VM. If we perform the paste operation with Explorer instead, somewhat, the act of pasting, makes VMware react, VMware copies the file from the real system to the temp location in the virtual system and then Explorer in the virtual system copies it from the temp folder to the final destination.

[admin]

Ah, I see.

Could you make a test please: There is currently one way to force a shell paste in XY, namely when you paste from the clipboard directly into a ZIP file. So, right-click a dummy ZIP file and choose Paste from the context menu. Does this work to/from Remote Desktop Connection?

[ale]

After tons of tries I came to the conclusion that it cannot be tested I mean: the "paste" command of a dummy zip file is enabled only if the file is available in the virtual machine in the temp location, otherwise there are only cut and copy, no paste is available in the contextual menu. By the way, I tried Q-Dir, FreeCommander and xplorer2 the copy and paste works in all of them but they probably perform a shell paste.

[admin]

After tons of tries I came to the conclusion that it cannot be tested I mean: the "paste" command of a dummy zip file is enabled only if the file is available in the virtual machine in the temp location, otherwise there are only cut and copy, no paste is available in the contextual menu.

Not sure what to make out of this. Needs research.