Office 2016 files not saving to external drive

[VMFUSERIL]

I'm using a 2018 MB Air with VM Fusion 11.0.3, Windows 10 Pro and MS Office 2016. All have the latest updates. I have full file share enabled in setup in VM Fusion. I can save files from MS office to my MB Air SSD with no problems. What I can't do is save any MS Office files to an external USB SSD. I receive an error messages saying file not saved. I've read several posts and some have said reinstall VMWare Tools, which I have done. That didn't not solve the problem. While in Windows I am able to see office files on the external SSD and and even open them in MS Office, I just can't save them. Trying to troubleshoot and test for this post I was able to save a PDF file from Adobe Acrobat in Windows to the external SSD without any problem. Any suggestions would be appreciated. TYIA.

[ColoradoMarmot]

Are you attaching the USB drive to the guest, or to the host?

[VMFUSERIL]

The USB SSD is connected to the Host - Mac, not directly to VM Fusion - Guest. As I understand the way it should work as long as I have every thing from the Mac side shared to the windows side opening and saving should be seamless on either side.

[ColoradoMarmot]

External drives can be a bit touchy.  The way I've found to make it work the best is to have the drive attached when you boot (not resume) the guest.

The root of the USB drive should be listed as a separate entry in 'shared folders' in the VM settings.  Sharing /Volumes doesn't work reliably.

[VMFUSERIL]

Checked. The SSD is checked off. I rebooted and tried to save an excel file to the SSD and received two messages. The first said the file already exists do I want to replace and when I click yes I receive the file not saved message. I find it interesting that it seems to more of an office issue than a VM Fusion issue. Any other thoughts?

[ColoradoMarmot]

So you can save other files, just not directly from office?  That's very odd.

It could be related to the path being too long or having special characters in it.  As a workaround, try opening a command prompt, navigating to the folder where you want to save the files, then type subst y: .

That'll create a new virtual drive letter 'y'.  In office, navigate to y:\ and save to that folder. 

[wila]

Hi,

Most likely you are running an old version of VMware Tools in your VM.

Update your VMware Tools to at least version 10.2.1.

See also:

VMware Tools 10.2.1 Release Notes

• In the Windows Creators Fall release (1709), saving modified files using Microsoft Office applications to a VMware shared folder can fail.
  Attempts to save a Microsoft Office file after editing the file on a VMware shared folder in the Windows Creators Fall release (1709) VM might fail with an error similar to the following:

There has been a network or file permission error. The network connection may be lost"
  
  This issue might occur even when the network connection remains available and the drive is accessible. 

This issue is resolved in this release.

(the forum software clips some of that text, the full can be read at the link above.)

--

Wil

[VMFUSERIL]

Currently 10.3.2 is installed. I'll check out the link.

[VMFUSERIL]

That scenario does not seem to be applicable in this case.

[wila]

Hi,

Well.. that might be so, but shared folders is a feature that is provided via VMware Tools and you might  somehow have ended up with a broken install.

In your case I would still perform the following:

- uninstall VMware Tools

- reboot the guest

- install VMware Tools

Note that rebooting the guest inbetween is mandatory as it makes sure no old shared components are left before installing VMware Tools again.

--

Wil