Windows 7 RC on VMware Workstation 6.5.2

If you haven’t been there lately, the Workstation Zealot blog is humming. Today Michael Paiko, Workstation’s product marketing manager, gives us the skinny on the now publicly-available Windows 7 Release Candidate.

VMware: Workstation Zealot: Windows 7 RC on VMware Workstation 6.5.2.

There’s been a lot of buzz flying around about Windows 7 and what better way to try out a new operating system and see how it works than in a virtual machine. I am happy to report that you can run Windows 7 RC in a VMware Workstation 6.5.2 VM with all the great features you have come to love, including file drag and drop, text copy and paste, automatic screen resize, shared folders, and Unity. However, before we go further, I want to remind you that Windows 7 RC, both 32-bit and 64-bit, is not an officially supported guest at this time. We plan to support Windows 7 as a guest OS in a future release. This statement reminds me of the great new Mac ad “Legal Copy”.

By the way, if you do not have a copy of VMware Workstation, now is a great time to download a free trial and give both Workstation and Windows 7 a try at the same time. It’s a great way to find out how well your favorite application runs or application you are developing will run in Windows 7. This is one of those rare times when you can get a Windows OS to try without having to purchase a license upfront.

After going through the process of creating a Windows 7 VM, we decided to share some best practices on how to make this happen with some screenshots and suggestions to make it nice and easy for you. If you want to discuss your experiences with Windows 7 and VMware Workstation in more detail, please visit our VMware Workstation community forums.