Hello again everyone and welcome to my series The Support Outsider, a look into VMware from the point of view of an outsider (me), Intern Moses Masih.

When monitoring Twitter I have often come across people asking questions about how they might buy a VMware product that they had downloaded to try out, and decided after kicking the tires, to purchase.

The answer to their question is simply – through My VMware. If you wish to evaluate a VMware product you will be asked to set up a My VMware account. Some customers have questioned this extra step but I see why this was done. My VMware offers a lot of useful features that help in maintaining your account in an organized fashion.

Once you have logged into My VMware, go to the Products and Evaluations section and you will be able to see all of your current and expired evaluated products. Under Current Evaluations, you will see the product’s name and options like Download and How to buy. When you click on How to buy you will see various options presented which you can then use to buy the product you are evaluating. Check out article http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2007046 to get more information on this topic.

You will also find other features there like Product Registration where you can register license keys Registering a license key in My VMware (2011177), Betas where you can test VMware's cutting edge advancements, and Virtual Appliances where you can explore various cloud-ready virtual appliances, like the one I downloaded from the VMware Solution Exchange (last week’s post). Overall, the registration may seem like an annoyance up front, the payoff is in staying organized over the long term, and organization saves money.

Check out this article if you have any problems downloading any products: Downloading VMware products and troubleshooting issues with downloads (1012245).