VMWare Workstation 5.5 Released

[Jasthi]

It's finally out. :)

One of the most expected virtualization release, Workstation 5.5 (build 18463) brings in a lot of new features and improvements:

1.Full support for 64-bit guest operating systems and improved support for 64-bit host operating systems enable users to work in a broader range of environments

2.Experimental support for two-way Virtual Symmetric Multiprocessing (Virtual SMP) enables multiprocessor virtual machines

3.VMware Player gives you greater flexibility in distributing virtual machines

4.Improved support for 32-bit host and guest operating systems

5.Workstation emulates a new Ethernet adapter type for 64-bit guests

6.Workstation 5.5 driver certification updates

7.Improved import capability lets you open and import Microsoft Virtual PC and Virtual Server virtual machines, as well as Symantec LiveState Recovery system images, directly into Workstation

8.On Windows hosts, enhancements to the user interface let you customize Workstation toolbars to suit your workstyle

9.Enhanced support for wireless Ethernet adapters used in bridged networking lets you connect your virtual machines to wireless networks on Linux hosts

10.Enhanced autodetect makes it easier to configure devices for virtual machines

11.Enhanced autoconnect automatically reconnnects manually connected USB devices

12.Enhanced snapshot management makes it easier to work with snapshots

13.Enhanced command line interface helps you manage snapshots

14.Memory page trimming can be disabled to improve performance

15.Enhanced product update checking makes it more convenient to keep your Workstation software up to date

16.On Linux hosts, the user interface has been enhanced to work better with desktop appearance themes

17.Workstation 5.5 extends the display resizing features Autofit Guest and Fit Guest Now to Linux guests

You really need to read the Release Notes to have a first overview of all these things.

But there's more: with VMware Workstation 5.5 comes out a series of very useful utilities (producted by VMware but not officially supported):

VMware Player:

VMware Player is free software that enables PC users to easily run any virtual machine on a Windows or Linux PC. VMware Player runs virtual machines created by VMware Workstation, GSX Server or ESX Server and also supports Microsoft virtual machines and Symantec LiveState Recovery disk formats.

Processor Check for 64-Bit Compatibility:

This is a standalone processor check utility which you can use without VMware Workstation to perform the same check and determine whether your CPU is supported for virtual machines with 64-bit guest operating systems.

Disk Mount:

This is a Windows installer for the VMware DiskMount utility. With the VMware DiskMount utility, a VMware virtual disk file can be mounted as a Windows drive letter for read/write access to the files it contains.

Movie Decoder:

This is a Windows installer for the movie decoder. This utility is required to play movies recorded using VMware Workstation 5.

Virtual Machine Importer:

This is a Windows installer for the VMware Virtual Machine Importer. This utility allows you to convert a Microsoft Virtual PC or Microsoft Virtual Server virtual machine into a VMware Workstation 4 or 5 virtual machine.

Download everything (except the Player) here: http://www.vmware.com/download/ws

[Malisk]

Yay, just in time for the Vista Nov CTP. :D

An awesome update to the already dominating virtual machine. :)

I don't think especially 64-bit users will be too angry about this one ;)

[Koolslacker]

cool. I'll have to try this version.

[Kenny McCormick]

Great news. i've bin waiting for this.

[JCAP]

Thanks. Updated! I saw this earlier but I was too lazy to post it. :p

[Echilon]

The diskmount sounds like a good feature. I had a VM a while ago and they used to sell the software to mount virtual disks seperately.

[Express]

I believe my office has a license for 5.0, hope that works for 5.5 as well.

I am a Virtual PC user. I am going to try this out.

[Steffan]

I believe my office has a license for 5.0, hope that works for 5.5 as well.

I am a Virtual PC user. I am going to try this out.

586848287[/snapback]

It does. My office has the samething. I'm downloading it right now. The disk mount sounds interesting.

[Dragon5150]

The diskmount sounds like a good feature. I had a VM a while ago and they used to sell the software to mount virtual disks seperately.

The only thing I have noticed about the mounting software is that is works very squirelly in Server 2003, I mounted a drive and could not get to it in Windows explorer. I was able to get to it from a dos prompt but it would not support long file names.

Opened the the same VM in Windows XP using the same tool, and it worked just fine.

Weird

Also,

Here is a cool website for some GUI utils for the command line based VM tools.

http://petruska.stardock.net/software/

[EvilSeph]

For those of you with RAID drives and that have installed Daemon Tools v4 prior to installing VMWare, read this:

http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jsp...ssageID=314553&

Not only does this driver that VMWare installs/needs to run cause VMWare install to reboot at different points in the installation (for me it was services), it also causes my system AMD64 X2 (is all you need to know, I believe) to reboot each time the Windows welcome screen loads up. The odd thing is, this problem doesn't always occur - it seems to only occur 2, 3 or 4 times then I can finally log in.

Just a word of warning.