I've created a Windows Vista VM using VMWare Player 3 yesterday and I'm trying to compress this folder - it's about 11 GB in size. But each time I try to zip it I get a dialogue box saying "file not found or no read permission." Yet, when had several folders containing game screenshots that were 35 GB in size a week ago, Windows was able to compress them down to 4 GB successfully, no problems - why is it different this time?

How do I fix this? I googled, google said "try R clicking folder, uncheck "read only" attribute," I tried this but it didn't work.

Help?

Thanks in advance.

Why are you trying to compress a VMware image into a zip file? VMware will compress images if you ask it to.

I was trying to compress this vista virtual machine folder so 1) I can make a back up of it on a disc, and 2) so that when I want to use it later for schoolwork, etc, the virtual hard drive won't be just a few kilobytes in size, and 3) a 12 gb file/ folder is too big to back up onto a blank DVD, and I don't want to use a blu ray disc to back it up b/ c I want to only use these blu ray discs sparingly for now and then only for large gameplay screenshot folder backups until blue ray discs start being sold in 25 pack spindles like dvd's now are sold.

So will VMware compress this vista x64 folder (it contains all of this vm's stuff) if I tell it to? How exactly do I tell VMware to compress this entire folder?

I don't know if it still applies, but there was a limitation on the size of files that could be compressed using the Send-To Compressed function. That or the VM was running when you tried to zip it.

Try using 7-ZIP and see if you have the same issue.