Shared Folders contents are case sensitive

Discussion in 'Parallels Desktop for Mac' started by rpetges, May 27, 2006.

  1. rpetges

    rpetges Member

    Messages:
    38
    Hi,

    I recently bought an iMac and switched from WinXP to MacOSX but still need Windows for maintaining some Delphi applications.

    I stored all my development source files on the OSX filesystem and mapped a drive into a virtual machine to a shared folder. Accessing this shared folder works fine but I have a problem compiling my source code, because Delphi tells me it can't find the files .... it seems to me it's related to case sensitive files/folders.

    Is there any solution to deactivate case sensitivity within a virtual machine ?

    Best regards,
    Romain

    --
    Romain Petges
    http://www.petges.com
     
  2. mac_tweaker

    mac_tweaker Bit poster

    Messages:
    7
    I'm seeing the same thing, shared folders are case sensitive and this is causing problems. Is there any way around this?

    How is the shared folder functionality implemented? Is it built on top of networking? What kind?

    I set up an smb share but because I switch between two network, my IP address changes and the smb share disconnects.
     
  3. mac_tweaker

    mac_tweaker Bit poster

    Messages:
    7
    No one has run into this?
     
  4. nivenh

    nivenh Member

    Messages:
    51
    i made a new thread about this earlier. i'm seeing it as well, however i don't have a fix for it other than using the built-in SMB stuff in osx and xp instead of shared folders. while the latter isn't quite so fast, its definitely 100% compatible.
     
  5. pineweasel

    pineweasel Bit poster

    Messages:
    3
    I'm seeing this problem too with a shared source code folder - in my case C++ code on my Mac that I'm attempting to compile under Win 2000 from a Parallels shared folder. It would be great to see this fixed or made an option in a future update.
     
  6. mac_tweaker

    mac_tweaker Bit poster

    Messages:
    7
    I've ended up using smb shares with a .local bonjour address (see http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?p=13747)

    The speed is abysmal though. We really need Shared Folders to behave like other Windows file systems and not be case sensitive.

    An official response from Parallels would be really appreciated. Is this case sensitivity intended? Is there any way of turning it off?
     
  7. pineweasel

    pineweasel Bit poster

    Messages:
    3
    Thanks for the Bonjour instructions, mac_tweaker.

    Unfortunately this solution is unusably slow for me. I'm thinking of storing my source code on a separate FAT32 partition and accessing it from both OS X and Windows - slightly inconvenient, but it ought to work.
     
  8. mac_tweaker

    mac_tweaker Bit poster

    Messages:
    7
    Agreed, smb file sharing is horribly slow.

    I've also been contemplating using a separate physical partition. If you go this route, please report back on how well this works. My open questions: What configuration if any does Parallels require for the partition to be available in Windows. And what is the performance like?

    This is a horrible situation if you need to compile the same source for both Windows and OS X. You can't use BootCamp because every time you make a change to the source in either environment, you'd need to reboot to the other environment and make sure your changes didn't break the other platform. This would get old very quick.

    Parallels avoids the reboot issue but with this case sensitivity problem you're forced to use smb file sharing and incur what seems like an 10x slowdown in compile speed. I had hoped that Parallels would be attentive to blocking problems such as these, but with no comment from them on this issue, I'm starting to lose hope.

    The dream of compiling code for Windows and OS X on the same machine is so close yet so far away!
     
  9. ptoal

    ptoal Bit poster

    Messages:
    3
    Hi Folks,

    Just bought one of these new fancy iMac's, and Parallels (bought Parallels before the Mac arrived, I was so sure I needed the product) :).

    Of course, my wife wants some of her old Windows apps, one of which is QImage. Problem is that QImage does a lookup on the HD for .jpg files, and all mine have .JPG extensions. Enter the case-sensitivity issue reported here.

    So please add my name to the growing list of users hitting this problem. Maybe I'll pop over and fill out a support request...

    Cheers,
    Pat
     
  10. rpetges

    rpetges Member

    Messages:
    38
     
  11. JohnO

    JohnO Junior Member

    Messages:
    15
    How might a "real" secondary partition, such as a FAT32 BootCamp partition play in this scenario? Can you "reach out" from the Parallels Desktop to a shared folder from an external partition, and will the case sensitivity, insensitivity behave as Windows would like?

    I've got BootCamp installed, but have also purchased Parallels Desktop, and would like to do as much as possible from PD, but keep BC, because I know I'll always have a need for "real" PC for hardware testing, etc.

    Thanks,

    john
     
  12. pineweasel

    pineweasel Bit poster

    Messages:
    3
    I'm still having the same case-sensitivity problem with the new beta, unfortunately
     
  13. >>> Message has been deleted by the user <<<
     
  14. ptoal

    ptoal Bit poster

    Messages:
    3
    Still no dice with Beta

    All, just for the record, my application (QImage) still doesn't work with the new beta. I'm going to see if I can talk to the people that write the app. Maybe they can modify the behaviour of QImage to work around the case-sensitivity of Parallels.

    Cheers,
    Pat
     
  15. MicroDev

    MicroDev Hunter

    Messages:
    122
    First, shared folders are broken (for me). They regularly corrupt files when the files are saved from various development tools. I simply don't trust it yet.

    SMB on the other hand, does not seem that slow to me. I usually just run with Airport on a MBP, map the source code working directory to a drive letter and bang away from XP and OSX simultaneously. In fact, I run an Oracle 9i database from the XP side and develop Java code on the OSX side and it runs faster than accessing most of our clients remote databases.

    This is all running through firewalls on both OSX and XP so I'm a little perplexed as to the cause of your slowdown. What kind of compilation are you doing?
     
  16. nivenh

    nivenh Member

    Messages:
    51
    i have the same problem with the case sensitivity. here's the best setup i've come up with...

    - enable SMB sharing in osx.
    - enable internet sharing from my airport to en2 (parallels adapter)
    - set the VM to host-only networking

    this will let you get to your mac via smb very fast without case problems, and you can still get on the outside network from parallels.

    hope this helps until it gets fixed.
     
  17. ptoal

    ptoal Bit poster

    Messages:
    3
    A hint as to what's broken...

    All, FYI; I just did some digging, and fired off the following through the support web form:

    Hello,

    I previously reported a problem with case-sensitivity in the PSF drivers. I have narrowed down the problem, and would like to provide you more information.

    The application I'm trying to use is making calls which are reported by the Sysinternals Filemon program to be:

    IRP_MJ_DIRECTORY_CONTROL "FileBothDirectoryInformation: *.jpg"

    This call is returning "NO SUCH FILE" on a directory that contains many files with the .JPG extension.

    I believe that the call should return these files, since the Windows operating system would do that on a FAT32/NTFS partition.

    If you could fix this, I would _greatly_ appreciate it. It is currently hindering my ability to use the single most important WinXP application I have. :)

    Thanks in advance,
    Patrick Toal
     

Share This Page