I am wondering whether there is a way to share files between a "real" OS and another which I am running in VMWare virtual machine.

When I log into my router it obviously shows only one machine, so to my understanding, I can not use that single machine's IP to define which machine I want to connect to, as it is identical to that of the "other" machine.

Is there a way to make the host machine and the virtual machine running on it behave as two separate machines which can access each other like two machines in a regular local netwrok?

(So far the only simple way I was able to move files between them was to start an apache server on one of them, and then enter the IP of the machine in the local network to access the files the server is able to serve using a browser.)

Please note that my knowledge in networking is less than basic. Thanks in advance.

Yes you can do this. If, for example, your main OS was Linux and the OS in your VMWare session was Windows you could do the following:

- Use bridged networking in VMWare so that the VMWare clients can see the rest of your network;
- Use Samba to create shares on the Linux box that will be visible to the Windows VMWare client;
- Map drives to the shares (or connect directly with UNC notation) from the Windows VMWare client.

Could anyone give a bit more detail on suggestions 2 and 3?

The access denied error is appeard, while sharing the data. In network sharing the document appeared but it does't accessible to my virtual Xp OS.
My local os: Linux mint 15
My virtual OS: windows xp SP3