How to share files between host XP and RedHat VM?

Hi, I am fairly new to Linux. I have a Win XP host machine where I am running a Redhat virtual machine using VMplayer. I have a tool in the VM that I need to run using some input data located on the host machine. How can I share files between the host and the VM? I need to be able to read/write files from within the VM.

Someone mentioned "Samba" to me and it looks like it's installed on the VM, or at least I see files and folders on the VM containing "samba" in their names. So how do I use it for sharing? Are there other approaches?

Can you provide step-by-step instructions or point me to those?

Any help will be greatly appreciated!

This is a bit old, but it should still cover some basics:

Configuring a Samba Server

Well u could do it with a little tweaking ,first on you VM image have two lan cards configured as

1] Host-only
2] NAT

then try pinging your local host to VM and VM to local host on your NAT interface which you can access on Network connections GUI of your host
(probably VMnet8) enable CIFS (common internet file sharing)

then on you linux image do as follows

mount -t cifs //ntserver/download -o username=yourname /mnt
it will prompt you for password

now access your windows files in /mnt

That should do it

hi

just download winscp software on ur host machine.As it is in gui mode u just need to enter the ip address of the redhat linux ,and just drag and drop the required file from xp to linux.