I am a software developer using a couple of virtual machines running Windows XP for development. My real machine is a laptop running Vista.
What’s the best way to share the same set of document files between these?
As I see it, I have some options:
1. Keep my files on a network drive. Not good if I go on the road, but should be straightforward.
2. Keep my files in a folder on my real machine and use the Shared Folders feature of the Virtual PC 2007. It seems like using a shared folder in this manner is very slow and not completely stable though.
3. Use my real machine as a file server and share the files across the network with my virtual machines. I’ve not tried this yet.
4. Create a dedicated virtual machine and use it as a file server. I’ve not tried this yet, but it seems like a pretty flexible idea, as I could move the file virtual machine around and back it up pretty easily.
5. Share a VHD file between my virtual machines. This leaves out my real machine, and I’m not sure if it can be done reliably since each virtual machine may think the VHD belongs only to it. Do bad things happen if you share an NTFS hard drive between 2 Windows XP systems?
Are there other options I’m overlooking?