How to access localhost on Mac through IE browser, that's running on VMWare

Access it using the IP address of your mac.  

For example instead of http://localhost:8080/index.html use http://192.168.1.12:8080/index.html

You can find the IP address of your mac in your Network PrefPane or by typing ifconfig at the command line.  If you are using NAT for networking on your virtual machine you may have to change the network configuration of the virtual machine to bonded before this will work.

I don't know if it will cross the VM barrier but "http://localhost:8080/" would be the normal syntax.

Both of those cases result in this error:

"The remote device or resource won't accept the connection."

It did work when run from your browser on Mac OS, right?  I ask to make sure it's working in the first place.  If not, what URL do you use under Mac OS?

What software are you using?  A lot of development environments will only accept connections addressed to localhost by default.  To get it to respond by IP you have to make it available to anyone that can see your computer on the local network.  Make sure your security settings are set up to allow that or you will not be able to access it from the VM.

The http://localhost:8080/folder-name/ works, when I run it from my browser on Mac OS, but the http://ip-address:8080/folder-name/ doesn't work there either.

ericnils:
I'm not sure what you're asking. The website I'm trying to view uses a CMS called Plone (this probably doesn't matter). My Mac operating system is Snow Leopard and my Windows operating system Windows 7. And the software I'm using to run Windows is WMWare.

I'll try to see if I can find the security settings for accessing the IP address.

I think I need to change something in my settings for  Sharing -> Internet sharing.

The options are as follows:

Share your connection from: AirPort / Ethernet / Parallels Host-Only Networking Adapter / Firewire / Parallels Shared Networking Adapter / Bluetooth DUN

And then below:
To computers using:
same options as above

If I understand correctly, you are running VMware Fusion within Mac OS X and have installed Windows 7 as a Virtual Machine. Please correct me if my assumptions are wrong.

Yes, that is correct arunraju.

Can you access your web page using the http://ip-address:8080/folder-name/ from another physical computer on your local network?

There's only me, working from home, so I'm afraid I can't test that right now. Maybe tomorrow when I'm at the office.

As you recommended in the other thread, I've now got rid of my Windows 7 virtual machine on VMWare. However, I still have Windows XP Professional running on there.

Please update what mode of networking have you setup for the Virtual Machine. (Bridged / NAT / Host-only)

It's NAT.

I guess the VM has an IP in 192.168.X.X subnet.

The best way to connecting to the host from the VM is by using the syntax : http://:portnumber.

Let me know how it goes.

If you change the NAT to Bridged it will almost certainly work.

Arunraju, isn't that the same as this, that was already discussed earlier?
http://ip-address:8080/folder-name/ 

By the IP-address I mean the IP I get for my computer when checking it on the Mac OS.

Ericnils, I tried changing to Bridged, and that didn't do anything.

Actually, your issue probably was that your osx host firewall was blocking traffic to port 8080. You could disable the firewall and retry the http://<ip of mac>:8080 attempt.

I didn't know who to reward the points to, because I wasn't able to follow any of the instructions and therefore couldn't figure out how or where I should change my settings. The localhost address together with the port number was the correct way to address the location I was trying to view, but I only got it working after finding instructions elsewhere, where I was told to edit the hosts.txt file.