VMware Workstation

VMware Workstation Pro (known as VMware Workstation until release of VMware Workstation 12 in 2015) is a hosted (Type 2) hypervisor that only runs on x64 versions of Windows and Linux operating systems.[4] There used to be an x86-32 version for earlier versions for the software.[3] It enables users to set up virtual machines (VMs) on a single physical machine and use them simultaneously along with the host machine. Each virtual machine can execute its own operating system, including versions of Microsoft Windows, Linux, BSD, and MS-DOS. VMware Workstation is developed and sold by VMware, Inc. There is a free-of-charge version called VMware Workstation Player (known as VMware Player until release of VMware Workstation 12 in 2015), for non-commercial use. An operating systems license is needed to use proprietary ones such as Windows. Ready-made Linux VMs set up for different purposes are available from several sources.

VMware Workstation Pro
Developer(s)VMware
Initial release1999[1]
Stable release
17.5[2] Edit this on Wikidata / 19 October 2023 (19 October 2023)
Written inC, C++
Operating systemWindows
Linux
Platformx86-64 only[3]
(version 11.x and above, previous versions were available for x86-32 as well)
TypeHypervisor
LicenseFreeware and commercial (Workstation Player)
Trialware and commercial (Workstation Pro)
Websitewww.vmware.com/products/workstation-pro.html

VMware Workstation supports bridging existing host network adapters and sharing physical disk drives and USB devices with a virtual machine. It can simulate disk drives; an ISO image file can be mounted as a virtual optical disc drive, and virtual hard disk drives are implemented as .vmdk files.

VMware Workstation Pro can save the state of a virtual machine (a "snapshot") at any instant. These snapshots can later be restored, effectively returning the virtual machine to the saved state,[5] as it was and free from any post-snapshot damage to the VM.

VMware Workstation includes the ability to group multiple virtual machines in an inventory folder. The machines in such a folder can then be powered on and powered off as a single object, useful for testing complex client-server environments.

2016 company changes and future development

VMware Workstation versions 12.0.0, 12.0.1, and 12.1.0 were released at intervals of about two months in 2015.[6] In January 2016 the entire development team behind VMware Workstation and Fusion was disbanded and all US developers were immediately fired.[7][8][9][10] The company said that "the restructuring activities will not impact the existence of any current product lines", that "roles and responsibilities associated with particular businesses will be moved to other regions and office locations", and that investment would continue "with emphasis on our growth products". The future of Workstation and Fusion became uncertain. On 24 April 2016 maintenance release 12.1.1 was released. In September, same year, the company announced that "we’re very much alive and well".[11] Consequently, on September 13 Workstation 12.5 and Fusion 8.5 were released as free upgrades which added support for Windows 10 Anniversary edition and Windows Server 2016. Since then versions 14 (in 2017, skipping number 13), 15 (in 2018), 16 (in 2020) and 17 (in 2022) were released.

Version history
Legend
Color Meaning
Red Unsupported release
Green Current or still supported release
Blue Future release
Version Release date Significant changes
1.0[12] 15 May 1999 First release
1.0.1[12] 14 June 1999
  • Added support of Linux kernel 2.3.x
1.0.2[12] 25 June 1999
1.0.3[12] 20 July 1999
  • New product logo and icons
1.1 for Linux[13] 11 October 1999 First Linux release
  • Added support of Windows 2000
  • Added support of bidirectional parallel ports
  • Added support of Linux kernel 2.2.10
  • Improved support for raw disk file configuration via the Configuration Wizard and Editor
  • Improved support for upgrading Linux kernels and for uninstalling the product
  • Experimental support for RPM installations
  • Improved SMP performance in Linux kernel versions 2.2.8 and later
  • Improved built-in help
1.1.1 for Linux<[13] 18 October 1999
1.1.2 for Linux[13] 13 November 1999
  • Changes in the handling of virtual disks
1.0.1 for Windows[14] 15 November 1999
2.0[15] 3 March 2000
  • Increased desktop performance
  • Added support of memory and power user changes in Windows 2000
  • Improved upgrade to new VMware Workstation releases
  • Limited SCSI support for disks and CD-ROM devices
  • Added support for suspending the virtual machine to disk
  • Added support for shrinking the virtual disks
  • Added support of floppy disk images
  • Added support of serial connections
  • Added support of sound input and improved sound output
  • Added support for disconnecting, modifying and editing the removable devices while the virtual machine is running
  • Improved support for raw disks
  • Experimental support of plain disks
2.0.1[15] 19 June 2000
2.0.2[15] 1 August 2000
2.0.3[15] 2 November 2000
  • Improved mouse performance
  • Added support for wheel mouse
  • Added support for installation of SVGA driver in a Windows Me guest machines
2.0.4[15] 21 May 2001
  • Added support of Red Hat Linux 7.1 and SUSE Linux 7.1
  • Increased default memory size of a Linux virtual machine to 64 MB
  • Added support of Pentium 4 processors
  • Added support for Windows 2000 hosts with CD-ROM drives configured for digital audio
3.0[16] 11 November 2001
  • Added support of reading DVD discs
  • Added support of reading enhanced CD discs in the raw access mode
3.1[17] 29 March 2002
  • Increased performance
3.1.1[18] 9 April 2002
  • Increased performance
3.2[19] 16 September 2002
4.0[20] 7 April 2003 Single snapshots
4.5[21] 15 March 2004
5.0[22] 7 April 2005
  • Multiple snapshots
  • Linked clones
  • Teams
5.5[23] 29 November 2005
  • Introduced support of Intel VT-x/AMD-V virtualization instructions, as well as x86-64 and multi-processor virtual machines[24]
6.0[25] 9 May 2007
  • Multiple monitor support
  • Background virtual machines
  • High-speed USB devices (EHCI)
6.5[26] 23 September 2008
  • 6.5 is the last version to support CPUs without PAE[27]
  • Record Replay[28]
  • Unicode
  • Unity mode
7.0[29] 10 October 2009
  • Replay Debugging (improved Record Replay)[30]
7.1[31] 25 May 2010
8.0[32] 14 September 2011
  • Shared Virtual Machines
  • Workstation 8 is the first version that requires an x64-compatible CPU.
  • Replay Debugging removed[33]
9.0[34] 23 August 2012
10.0[35] 3 September 2013
10.0.1[36] 24 October 2013
  • Improved compatibility with some AMD Piledriver CPUs
  • Easy Install support for Windows 8.1 RTM and Windows Server 2012 R2 RTM
  • Fixes for certain hangs and freezes
10.0.2[37] 17 April 2014
  • The compatibility and performance of USB audio and video devices with virtual machines has been improved.
  • Resolved an issue that prevents a USB device from being connected to Linux RHEL 5 guest operating system.
  • Easy installation option supports Windows 8.1 Update 1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 as a guest operating system.
  • openSUSE 13.1 is now supported as a host operating system.
  • Resolved an issue causing burning CDs with Blu-ray drives to fail while connected to the virtual machine.
  • Resolved an issue that caused using Microsoft Word and Excel in unity mode causes a beep.
  • Resolved an issue causing host application windows to be blanked out in the UAC dialog on the Linux host of the Windows 8 virtual machine.
  • Resolved an issue that prevented the Sound Card from being automatically added to the VM when powering on the virtual machine on a Linux host.
  • Resolved an issue that could cause a Windows 8.1 guest operating system to display a black screen when launching Metro style applications in the launch menu.
  • Resolved a hotkey conflict in the Preference dialog of the KVM mode.
  • Resolved a compatibility issue of GL renderer with some new Nvidia drivers.
  • Resolved graphics errors with for Solidworks applications.
  • Resolved an issue causing virtual machines imported from a physical PC to crash on startup.
  • Resolved an issue about shared folder when the user read and write file using two threads.
  • Resolved an issue that caused Linux virtual machines to see stale file contents when using shared folders.
  • Resolved the virtual machine performance issues when using the E1000e adapter.
  • Resolved an issue preventing Workstation from starting on Ubuntu 14.04.
10.0.3[38] 1 July 2014
  • VMware Workstation 10.0.3 has been updated to the OPENSSL library version openssl-0.9.8za where necessary to address CVE-2014-0224, CVE-2014-0198, CVE-2010-5298, CVE-2014-3470.
10.0.4[39] 30 October 2014
  • Fixes memory issue in Workstation on Microsoft Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012.
10.0.5[40] 27 January 2015
  • Bug fixes
    • At power-on, a virtual machine hangs and a .dmp file is created.
    • The VideoReDo application does not display the video properly and parts of the application's screen are scrambled.
    • Copying and pasting a large file from host to guest may fail.
    • Memory leak in the HGFS server (for shared folders) causes VMware Tools to crash randomly with the error: Exception 0xc0000005 (access violation) has occurred.
    • New VMs have the same location UUID and MAC address so that the UUID and MAC address are not unique. This problem occurs with WS 9 and WS 10 VMs but not WS 7 and WS 8 VMs.
    • On RHEL 6.6, vmmon cannot be loaded due to incompatible kernel symbol versions. With gcc, kernel-headers, kernel-devel installed, vmmon module will be recompiled automatically.
    • Memory leak by the process vmtoolsd.exe when the guest NIC is disabled causes memory consumption by Workstation processes to increase over time.
    • When USB devices are autoconnected with a hub to a Renesas host controller, the devices are not redirected to the guest.
    • WS 11 license is accepted by WS 10.0.5 and future 10.0 updates.
    • When WS is installed on Linux in a non-default location, the Virtual Network Editor fails to run.
10.0.6[41] 5 May 2015
  • Fixed a problem when uploading a virtual machine with Workstation 10.0.x to ESXi 6.0.
10.0.7[42] 2 July 2015
  • Security fixes
  • Final version to support Windows XP and Vista, as well 32-bit version of Windows on hosts
11.0[43] 1 December 2014
11.1[44] 17 February 2015
  • Added support for VMware vCloud Air Virtual Private Cloud OnDemand
  • Bug fixes:
    • A Linux guest OS booted on EFI firmware sometimes failed to respond to the keyboard and mouse if any mouse motion occurred during a short window of time during OS boot.
    • Outlook 2010 would occasionally crash when running in Unity mode.
    • You could not compact or defragment a persistent disk.
    • The UI sometimes crashed when a user copied and pasted a file between two Windows guests.
    • Rendering corruption in UI elements in Fedora 20 guests with 3D enabled.
    • When creating a new virtual machine with SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLE) 12, the Easy Install path was not available.
11.1.1[45] 9 June 2015
  • Critical security fix for CVE-2012-0897, CVE-2015-2336, CVE-2015-2337, CVE-2015-2338, CVE-2015-2339, CVE-2015-2340, CVE-2015-2341
    • VMware Workstation and Horizon Client TPView.ddl and TPInt.dll incorrectly handle memory allocation. On Workstation, this may allow a guest to execute code or perform a Denial of Service on the Windows OS that runs Workstation.
11.1.2[46] 15 June 2015
  • Security Issues
    • VMware Workstation 11.1.2 has been updated to OpenSSL library version openssl-1.0.1m.
  • Bug Fixes
    • Two interface items on the Access Control screen used the same hot-key combination.
    • Attempting to suspend a Windows virtual machine with the Sensor Diagnostic Tool running caused the virtual machine to become unresponsive.
    • Using audio conferencing software on a Windows 8 guest operating system caused a severe echo during both video and audio calls.
    • On the Windows 95 guest operating system, the mouse cursor jumped.
    • Symbolic links created within a Windows guest operating system on a Linux host did not list files under subdirectories.
    • Workstation did not display Regions in the VMware vCloud Air Subscription node.
    • Workstation could not automatically detect the Fedora 21 ISO when creating a new Fedora 21 virtual machine.
    • Under specific conditions, when the alipaybsm.exe file was installed on the Workstation host, network service was disrupted.
    • After connecting to vCloud Air from Workstation, no virtual machines were listed in the Workstation virtual machine library.
    • Using Easy Install for the Ubuntu 15.04 guest operating system with kernel 3.19.0-15-generic prevented you from enabling folder sharing.
    • Reverting to a snapshot failed following a specific set of steps.
    • A Windows 10 guest operating system running idly caused Workstation to crash.
    • Using the Easy Install option to install the Ubuntu 14.04 or Ubuntu 15.04 guest operating system failed to install VMware Tools.
12.0.0 Pro[47] 24 August 2015 The following features have reached end of life in Workstation 12 Pro and have been removed:[48]
  • Unity mode on Linux guest and host operating systems
  • Virtual Debugger Visual Studio
  • Connection to the VMware vCloud Air subscription service

Added support for, amongst other things:

  • Later operating system versions, including Windows 10
  • DirectX 10 and OpenGL 3.3
  • IPv6 NAT
12.0.1 Pro[49] 29 October 2015 Bug fixes.
12.1.0 Pro[50] 8 December 2015
12.1.1 Pro[51][52] 21 April 2016
12.5 Pro[53][52] 13 September 2016
  • The announced[54] release date of 8 September 2016[55] was missed due to a nasty bug
  • Compatible with Windows 10 Anniversary Edition
12.5.1 Pro[56] 27 October 2016 Bug fixes, security updates for undisclosed vulnerabilities and performance improvements.
12.5.2 Pro[57] 13 November 2016 This release of VMware Workstation 12 Pro addresses an out-of-bounds memory access vulnerability related to the drag-and-drop feature. This may allow a guest to execute code on the operating system that runs VMware Workstation 12 Pro.
12.5.3 Pro[58] 9 March 2017 Bug fixes, security updates, and performance improvements.
  • Workstation Pro fails to launch on a Linux platform that uses kernel 4.9.0
  • Occasionally, the Workstation Pro user interface crashes in Workstation 12 Pro version 12.5 and displays an error
  • When you use a USB device that does not follow USB specifications in a virtual machine in USB passthrough mode, the guest becomes unusable
  • You cannot connect a parallel port to a virtual machine
  • Connecting an Active Braille device to the virtual machines fails
  • After users execute Active FTP in the guest operating system, the vmnat.exe process continues to use a TCP port of the host
  • ThinPrint technology does not work in a Windows XP guest operating system with VMware Tools 10.0.10
  • VMware Tools service is not started in Ubuntu 16.10 guest
  • You cannot use shared folders in a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.3 virtual machine
12.5.4 Pro[59] 14 March 2017 This release addresses an out-of-bounds memory access vulnerability related to the drag-and-drop feature. This vulnerability might allow a guest to execute code on the operating system that runs VMware Workstation 12 Pro.
12.5.5 Pro[60] 28 March 2017 This release of VMware Workstation Pro addresses the following issues:
  • VMware Workstation Pro has a heap buffer overflow and uninitialized stack memory usage in SVGA. These issues might allow a guest virtual machine to execute code on the host. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the identifiers CVE-2017-4902 (heap issue) and CVE-2017-4903 (stack issue) to these issues.
  • The VMware Workstation Pro XHCI driver has uninitialized memory usage. This issue might allow a guest virtual machine to execute code on the host. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the identifier CVE-2017-4904 to this issue.
  • VMware Workstation Pro has uninitialized memory usage. This issue might lead to an information leak. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the identifier CVE-2017-4905 to this issue.
12.5.6 Pro[61] 18 May 2017 This release includes the following highlights:
  • Day 0 support of the Windows 10 Creators Update (version 1703)
  • Bug fixes and security updates
12.5.7 Pro[62] 22 June 2017 This release of VMware Workstation Pro includes some bug fixes and security updates.
12.5.8 Pro[63] 16 November 2017

Support added for:

  • RHEL 7.4
  • Oracle Linux 7.3
12.5.9 Pro[64] 10 January 2018
  • This update of VMware Workstation Pro exposes hardware support for branch target injection mitigation to VMware guests. This hardware is used by some guest operating systems to mitigate CVE-2018-5715 (also called by the name "Spectre").
14.0.0 Pro[65] 26 September 2017 This major version release includes the following highlights:
  • Updated to support the newest versions of Microsoft Windows 10 (including Enterprise), and Windows Server editions, as well as various Linux distributions
  • Updated support for the latest Intel and AMD processors and limited or no support for pre-2011 CPUs
  • Improved virtual firmware support, such as UEFI, and new Secure Boot support
  • Support for Virtualization Based Security (VBS)
  • Improved Virtual Networking
  • New and improved support and controls for working with vSphere and the vCenter Server Appliance
  • Network latency simulator
  • New remote vSphere controls
14.1.0 Pro[66] 21 December 2017
  • This release delivers improved guest support of Windows 10 Fall Creators Update (Version 1709)
14.1.1 Pro[67] 9 January 2018
  • This update of VMware Workstation Pro exposes hardware support for branch target injection mitigation to VMware guests. This hardware is used by some guest operating systems to mitigate CVE-2018-5715 (also called by the name "Spectre").
14.1.2 Pro[68] 21 May 2018
  • This update delivers guest access to the SSBD feature in IA32_SPEC_CTRL.
  • This release delivers improved guest support of Windows 10 April 2018 Update (Version 1803)
  • Ubuntu 18.04 support as host and guest
14.1.3 Pro[69] 14 August 2018
14.1.4 Pro[70] 11 September 2018
  • VMware Workstation Pro has an uninitialized stack memory usage vulnerability in the vmxnet3 virtual network adapter that might allow a guest to execute code on the host. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the identifier CVE-2018-6981 to this issue.
14.1.5 Pro[71] 23 November 2018
  • VMware Workstation Pro contains an integer overflow vulnerability in the virtual network devices which may allow a guest to execute code on the host. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the identifier CVE-2018-6983 to this issue.
14.1.6 Pro[72] 14 March 2019

This release of VMware Workstation Pro addresses the following issues:

  • Workstation does not handle paths appropriately. This may allow the path to the VMX executable, on a Windows host, to be hijacked by a non-administrator leading to elevation of privilege. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the identifier CVE-2019-5511 to this issue.
  • COM classes are not handled appropriately. This may allow hijacking of COM classes used by the VMX process, on a Windows host, leading to elevation of privilege. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the identifier CVE-2019-5512 to this issue.
14.1.7 Pro[73] 29 March 2019
  • Workstation contains an out-of-bounds read/write vulnerability and a Time-of-check Time-of-use (TOCTOU) vulnerability in the virtual USB UHCI (Universal Host Controller Interface). These issues may allow a guest to execute code on the host. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the identifiers CVE-2019-5518 (out-of-bounds read/write) and CVE-2019-5519 (TOCTOU) to these issues.
14.1.8 Pro[74] 12 November 2019

This release of VMware Workstation Pro addresses the following issue:

  • VMware Workstation Pro and Player versions 14.x and earlier failed to launch on Windows 10 1903 after Windows 10 KB updates were applied.
15.0.0 Pro[75] 24 September 2018 This major version release includes the following highlights:
  • Support for new Microsoft Windows 10 builds (including Enterprise) as well as various Linux distributions
  • 4K resolution.
  • DirectX 10.1.
  • Shared graphics memory limit increased to 3GB.
  • RESTful API to automate common virtual machine tasks using standard JSON over HTTP/HTTPS.
  • This version adds new Hosts and Clusters view when connect to remote vSphere.
  • USB devices can be connected automatically to a powered on virtual machine.
  • SSH login to Linux virtual machine.
  • Guest display stretch.
  • Wayland protocol.
  • Improves performance for virtual NVMe storage.
15.0.1 Pro[76] 9 November 2018
  • Support for the new versions of various Linux distributions.
  • Bug fixes and security updates.
15.0.2 Pro[77] 22 November 2018
15.0.3 Pro[78] 14 March 2019
  • Bug fixes and security updates.
15.0.4 Pro[79] 29 March 2019
  • Bug fixes and security updates.
15.1.0 Pro[80] 14 May 2019
15.5.0 Pro[81] 19 September 2019
  • Support for new guest operating systems
  • Virtual networks with configurable MTU up to 9 000 bytes
  • Allows to save network settings after upgrades and to import and export network configurations
  • VMware Paravirtual SCSI Controllers (PVSCSI)
  • Open Virtual Machine Tools (open-vm-tools), previously known as VMWare Tools, is made default for applicable Linux guests in this version
  • Bug fixes and security updates.
15.5.1 Pro[82] 12 November 2019
  • Bug fixes and security updates
15.5.2 Pro[83] 12 March 2020
15.5.5 Pro[84] 28 May 2020
  • VMware Workstation 15.5.5 now runs on Windows hosts with Hyper-V features (For example: virtualization based security) enabled.
  • Support for new guest operating systems
  • Bug fixes and security updates
15.5.6 Pro[85] 9 June 2020
  • Bug fixes and security updates
15.5.7 Pro[86] 19 November 2020
  • Bug fixes and security updates
  • Final version to support Windows 7 on hosts
16.0 Pro[87] 15 September 2020 This major version release includes the following highlights:
16.1.0 Pro[88] 19 November 2020
  • Support for new guest operating systems
  • vctl kind updated to support Kubernetes IN Docker v0.9.0
  • Docker Machine VMware Driver (docker-machine-driver-vmware)
  • Bug fixes
16.1.1 Pro[89] 1 April 2021
  • Bug fixes
    • VMNet driver related security improvements
16.1.2 Pro[90] 17 May 2021
  • Security updates
16.2.0 Pro[91] 14 October 2021
  • Added support for Vulkan renderer on a Linux host with Intel, Nvidia, and AMD GPUs
  • Added partial support for Windows 11 as host or guest machines[92]
  • Security updates and bug fixes
16.2.1 Pro[93] 9 November 2021
  • Bug fixes
16.2.2 Pro[94] 18 January 2022
  • Security updates
16.2.3 Pro[95] 10 March 2022
  • Bug fixes
16.2.4 Pro[96] 21 July 2022
  • Bug fixes
16.2.5 Pro[97] 7 December 2022
  • Bug fixes
17.0 Pro[98] 17 November 2022
17.0.1 Pro[99] 2 February 2023
  • Security updates and bug fixes
17.0.2 Pro[100] 25 April 2023
  • Security updates and bug fixes
17.5 Pro[101] 19 October 2023
  • Support for up to 256 NVMe devices (4 controllers and 64 devices per controller)
  • Support for NVMe 1.3
  • Upgraded encryption algorithm from CBC to XTS
  • New VMRUN command line utility for controling virtual machines
  • Support for importing or exporting virtual machines with vTPM device
  • Support for managing power operations of encrypted virtual machines using VMREST API
  • Security updates and bug fixes

Host OS support
Current operating systems compatibility matrix
Operating system Workstation release
Windows 11 16.2 and later[102]
Windows 10 October 2020 Update (20H2) and up 16.0 and later
Windows Server 2022 17.0 and later
Windows Server 2019 15.5 and later
Windows Server 2016 14.0 and later
Linux distributions Varies[102][103][104]

 

Legacy operating systems compatibility matrix
Operating system Workstation release
Windows 10 May 2020 Update (v2004) 15.5.5 and later
Windows 10 November 2019 Update (v1909) 14.1.8 and later
Windows 10 May 2019 Update (v1903) 15.0 and later
Windows 10 October 2018 Update (v1809) 14.0 and later
Windows 10 April 2018 Update (v1803) 14.0–15.5[104]
Windows 10 Creators Update (v1703) / Fall Creators Update (v1709) 15.0–15.5[104]
Windows 10 Anniversary Update (v1607) 12.5–14.0[104]
Windows 10 v1507 and November Update (v1511) 11.0–14.0[104]
Windows 8.1 10.0–16.2[102]
Windows 8 9.0–14.0[104]
Windows 7 7.1–15.5[104]
Windows Vista 6.0–10.0
Windows XP 3.0–10.0[105]
Windows 2000 2.0–6.5[106][107]
Windows NT 4.0 1.0–4.5
Windows Server 2012 R2 10.0 and later
Windows Server 2012 9.0–14.0[104]
Windows Server 2008 R2 8.0–12.0[104]
Windows Server 2008 6.0–10.0
Windows Server 2003 R2 6.0–10.0
Windows Server 2003 4.0–10.0[108]

Variants

There was a free VMware Player distinct from Workstation, with similar but reduced functionality, until VMware Player v7, Workstation v11. In 2015 the two packages were combined as VMware Workstation 12, with a free VMware Workstation Player version which, on purchase of a player license key granted commercial use. However, purchase of a pro license key became the higher specification VMware Workstation Pro.[109] VMware Workstation Player, like VMware Player[110] before it, is free of charge for non-commercial use, or for distribution or other use by written agreement.[6][111] Workstation Pro is also available for download for a 30 day free trial period, and is easily confused with Workstation Player, which is an unlimited-time restricted-functionality version.

  • VMware Workstation Player (formerly known as Player Pro),[112] free for non-commercial use; a license may be purchased for commercial use, also providing eligibility for paid support.[113]
  • VMware Workstation Pro,[114] available for a 30-day free trial before purchase but distinct from the permanently free version.

The features of the versions are compared on the VMware web site.[113]

VMware Tools

VMware Tools, a package with drivers and other software available for the various guest operating systems VMware products support, installs in guest operating systems to add functionality. Tools is updated from time to time, with v12.1.5 in 29 November 2022.[115] It has several components, including the following:

  • Drivers for emulated hardware:
  • Support of shared folders and drag-and-drop file transfer between host and guest. This functionality is described as HGFS (Host Guest File System), and may be disabled by default for security; it may be enabled by changes to the .VMX configuration file
  • Clipboard sharing between host and guest
  • Time-synchronization capabilities (guest synchronizes with host machine's clock)
  • Support for Unity, a feature that allows seamless integration of applications with the host desktop[116] by hiding the monitor of the Virtual Machine and drawing the windows of applications running in the virtual machine on the host. Unity support was added for Windows 10 and removed for Linux in Workstation 12.[48]

Third-party resources

Ready-to-use virtual machines

Many ready-made virtual machines (VMs) which run on VMware Workstation Player, VMware Workstation Pro, and other virtualization software are available[117] for specific purposes, either for purchase or free of charge; for example free Linux-based "browser appliances" with the Firefox or other browser installed[118][119] which can be used for safe Web browsing; if infected or damaged it can be discarded and replaced by a clean copy. The appliance can be configured to automatically reset itself after each use so personal information and other changes are not stored.[119] VMs distributed legally only have freely distributable operating systems, as operating systems on VMs must be licensed; ready-to-use Microsoft Windows VMs, in particular, are not distributed, except for evaluation versions.

Other tools
  • PowerWF[120] - Provides a visual representation of VMware VIX scripts, converting them into workflows, or converting workflows into Powershell cmdlets and modules. VIX is VMware's addition to Microsoft's Powershell for automation of the VMware Player.

See also

References
  1. Thiruvathukal, George K; Hinsen, Konrad; Läufer, Konstantin; Kaylor, Joe (2010). "Virtualization for Computational Scientists". Computing in Science & Engineering. 12 (4): 52–61. Bibcode:2010CSE....12d..52T. doi:10.1109/MCSE.2010.92. ISSN 1521-9615. S2CID 6472898.
  2. "VMware Workstation 17.5 Pro Release Notes". 19 October 2023. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
  3. "Processor Requirements for Host Systems". VMware Workstation 9 Documentation Center. VMware. Retrieved 12 December 2012.
  4. https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2129859
  5. Warren, Steven (2008-11-20). "Snapshots in VMware Workstation". Blogs.techrepublic.com.com. Archived from the original on 2012-07-07. Retrieved 2012-09-13.
  6. "Download VMware Workstation Player". VMware. Retrieved 11 May 2016. Download site for VMware Player 7.x and Workstation Player 12.x
  7. "VMware Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2015 Results". ir.vmware.com. 26 January 2016. Retrieved 13 April 2016.
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