Disable Spotlight for VMware Fusion

I haven't used VMware Fusion in a while, but this evening I noticed that applications from a Windows installation on Fusion 2.x were showing up in Spotlight.  At first Firefox (Windows) was the top hit for Firefox, trumping the OS X installation.

Not exactly what I was after.

It's simple to fix, although not terribly intuitive for someone who doesn't use Spotlight much (like me). Open System Preferences, and then open the Spotlight preference pane. Select the Privacy pane and drag your Virtual Machines folder in. By default this is located at \Documents\Virtual Machines\.

Close System Preferences and you'll find that your virtual machine contents will immediately be excluded from Spotlight.

 

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13 Responses to “Disable Spotlight for VMware Fusion”

  1. Hemen H. Mehta Says:

    Thanks, I have been looking for a way to do this as I run Fusion all day long.

  2. Alessandra Says:

    Thanks, good post!
    I have also the problem with "open with …" in the finder :(.
    Can you help me?

  3. John Walker Says:

    Oh, good post! This has been driving me nuts! I had gotten so trigger-happy with spotlight cmd-space shortcut that it became really silly when Fusion kept starting up because the Windows equivalent application was always the top of the list.

    I think it is because when the virtual machine starts all the application aliases get renewed… at least that is what I understand by looking in the Today smart folder; there they all are as if I had just opened them all. So I suppose Spotlight is somehow fooled into treating them as regularly accessed.

  4. Rick Says:

    Thank You!!! That was driving me nuts!

  5. Luca Says:

    THANKS, really ;)

  6. Ben Robison Says:

    Thanks for this. First hit on Google, and it's exactly what I was looking for.

  7. Bob G. Says:

    Great. I was looking for this!

  8. Granville Barker Says:

    Thanks, that was a great help, I've been wanting to get that windows stuff out of spotlight for a while!

  9. Disable Spotlight for VMware Fusion and Save your sanity « LouisinLondon : London , IT and New Media Blog Says:

    [...] Well, luckily there is a way to disable this integration with Spotlight, so you only run Windows when you absolutely intended to do so. Disable Spotlight for VMware Fusion [...]

  10. Dineth Says:

    Thank you.

  11. the Blue Ape Says:

    To remove the VMware applications from the finder 'Open With…' menu in Fusion 3.1:

    1. go to the virtual machine list (shift-command-L)
    (do below for each machine)
    2. click 'Settings'
    3. click on 'Applications'
    4. select the 'Default Applications' tab
    5. UN-check "Open your Mac files and Weblinks using your Windows applications"

    voila! Why on earth VMware made this a default setting is beyond me.

  12. Jeffrey Friedl Says:

    Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you!

  13. Tommy Says:

    Thank you!

    To disable "Open with" in Fusion 2.0.8, go to Settings/Sharing on each system. Disable "Allow your Mac to open applications…."

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