>Hi,
>
>I have a system running VFP 6.0 and the client is moving it to VMWare with Win 7. I have a utility I use at other clients that does not have VMWare that sets the SMB2 switch off so there is no problems with contention. This issue is known and I have no problems since running this. I'm not familiar with VMWare and the client's IT doesn't know how to run this program in it. The program is from Alaska Software and has been a life saver. Just want to be sure if you can run it in the VM Box as you would any other program. I know it changes the registry but I do not know if each VM Box has its own registry.
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>Any help would be appreciated.

VMWare is a hypervisor. It's used to create Virtual Machines (VMs). When a VM is created it is provisioned with 1 or more virtual CPUs plus RAM memory and virtual hard disk space as required. Think of a newly created VM as the same as a physical computer, except that it exists only in software.

You can then install your operating system of choice on the newly created VM. It sounds like in your case it will be Windows 7. After that's done you have a fully functional Windows 7 computer. Just like with any other computer you can install your program, install the Alaska Software patch etc. You also need to make sure it has antivirus protection and is updated and backed up regularly.

One potential fly in the ointment is if the client has a large or tightly managed VMWare environment. Some large organizations are implementing Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), so that all users have consistent desktops. One way to approach this is to create a "gold" virtual machine image. When a user wants a desktop, the hypervisor spins up a new instance from the gold image. In this circumstance you may find that a user of the VM is not allowed to make network-level configuration changes, or if such changes are allowed, they don't persist once the VM is shut down.

If that's what they have, you would need to talk to the VMWare admin so that either the gold image is modified with the Alaska patch, or get them to set up another image that has the patch installed.

I get the feeling your client may have a small-ish VMWare installation so this may not be an issue. If it's a small environment and the VM is going to be allowed to persist between boots then you should be fine. But things are changing fast in this space, so to be 100% sure check with the VMWare admin.