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Workstation 15.5 Pro and Player Available Now!

It is with great pleasure that we are able to announce the immediate availability of VMware Workstation 15.5 Pro and Player!

 

Our major release this year comes as a free upgrade for existing version 15 customers, with upgrade discounts available for v12 and v14 customers.

Release Notes

Workstation Pro:

Direct Windows download ::: Direct Linux download

Workstation Player:

Direct Player for Windows download ::: Direct Player for Linux download

Still on Workstation 14 or 12.5? Upgrade Here!

Whats New

Jumbo Frames

Configure the MTU size of your virtual networks (Pro only) up to 9194 bytes for nested virtual lab environment testing and replication. Run a full NSX deployment on vSphere on your local system (sufficient CPU/RAM/Disk resources required, of course!). 

Better vSphere Compatibility: pvscsi

Workstation 15.5 introduces the pvscsi device, bringing improved desktop-to-datacenter compatibility for many virtual machine and OVA/OVF templates. No need to change virtual devices and settings when migrating workloads between Workstation and vSphere!

New OS support

Workstation is updated to support the latest versions of Microsoft Windows and the major Open Source distributions:

    • Windows 10 19H2
    • Ubuntu 1904 (and 1910 after release)
    • Debian 10.1
    • RHEL 7
    • FreeBSD 12.0
    • Oracle Linux 8
    • SLE 15 SP1

Display control at your fingertips

Users of multi-monitor setups can take advantage of our new display-layout shortcut key.

Use ‘Ctrl-Alt-M’ in full screen mode to bring up the Monitor Layout menu. From there select one of the options with another keystroke (i.e. the 1, 2, 3, 4, number keys)

We’ve also fixed a number of bugs, improved performance (most noticeably around host-guest file sharing and vm shutdown times), and added a number of important security fixes.

Grab the download by using Workstation to ‘Check for updates’, from your MyVMware portal, or download it directly here:

Workstation Pro:

Direct Windows download

Direct Linux download:

Workstation Player:

Direct Player for Windows download

Direct Player for Linux download

 

We hope you love it!

Let us know what you think in the VMware Workstation Community forums!

Workstation and Hyper-V Harmony

Many users have been taking advantage of Microsoft Hyper-V features that on the surface don’t exactly look like the typical virtualization we’re used to. Device Guard and Credential guard, for example, provide an extra layer of security by using the virtualization extensions of x86 CPU’s and Microsoft’s Hyper-V hypervisor.

Hyper-V is also involved in running Windows Subsystem For Linux (v2) and Windows Server Containers behind the scenes.

And while this is a very effective suite of security barriers and great new set of ‘no compromise’ Linux and open source tools for developers, unfortunately it renders Workstation unable to launch.

You. Shall. Not. Pass.

bzzttt! Sorry!

Monday morning at VMworld 2019 we presented our annual ‘What’s New‘ session to talk about the upcoming Fusion and Workstation releases and share a little of our roadmap. More on that here.

Closing out the presentation we had “One More Thing” to share, and we brought our friend Ben Armstrong, Product Manager for the Microsoft Windows Hypervisor Platform, to join us in announcing something we’ve been working on for quite some time now.

For the past year we’ve been collaborating closely with Microsoft on the Windows Hypervisor Platform engineering team so that Workstation can co-exist with Hyper-V enabled hosts.

Our demo consisted of booting both an Ubuntu Linux virtual machine and a Windows 10 virtual machine on a host with Hyper-V features, specifically device guard and credential guard, enabled.  While it was a little slow, we had no errors and were able to even open up a youtube video.

By building into Workstation the ability to use these new Hypervisor API’s at its core layers of operation, Hyper-V features and VMware Workstation virtual machines will be able to co-exist at the same time on the same host, out of the box.

We have a ways to go still, but we wanted to share this with our users to let them know that this was something we were working on with the highest of priorities, even tho we couldn’t talk about it until now.

We’re excited about the future and our ongoing collaboration with Microsoft and the WHP team, and look forward to sharing a tech demo in 2020.

When the VMworld Recordings go live you we will update this post and link to our session.

See Ben Armstrong’s blog post on the topic here:
https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Virtualization/VMware-Workstation-and-Hyper-V-Working-Together/ba-p/825831

 

 

 

Black Friday Sale!

Hurry while the savings last! – try our super secret coupon code ‘BF2018’ for an additional 10% off! 45% off in total!!

On Wednesday, November 21st at 8am PST (and maaaaaaybe a bit earlier ;), the doors to our biggest sale off the year will be opened!

Shop Now!

Save up to 35% off your favorite VMware Desktop Hypervisors – Fusion and Workstation, from now until Monday during our annual Black Friday sale!

Workstation 15 Pro delivers exciting new features such as DirectX 10.1 graphics, a revamped application interface, 4K display support with added scaling controls, one-click SSH to Linux VMs and more!

Hurry while the savings last!

Shop Now!

Workstation 15 Is Here

Workstation 15 Pro and Player are Now Available!

Download Now

Workstation Pro                 Workstation Player 

Buy Now

In celebration of our 20th anniversary, the VMware Workstation team is very proud to announce the general availability of VMware Workstation 15 Pro and VMware Workstation 15 Player, our flagship desktop hypervisors for Windows and Linux PCs.

With features aimed at developers and IT, as well as many overall improvements, this is one of our biggest releases yet.

Some of our favorite highlights include modernizing our user interface with 4K and HiDPI support, a brand new REST API, DirectX 10.1, and One-Click SSH into a Linux VM.

Brand New REST API

Most exciting for us is the addition of a new REST API. This API is the very same introduced in Fusion 10 last year has been brought to the Workstation platform. The REST API allows users to automate VM tasks as part of a broader workflow. Quickly command Workstation to deploy, configure and destroy VMs on the fly to rapidly speed up the development and testing process.

Control VMs with JSON over HTTP/S to automate all the things, locally or remotely

Version 1.2 of the API adds new controls to manage NAT port forwarding and MAC to IP DHCP bindings, allowing users to create complex virtual networking simulations using standard JSON over HTTP/S.

 

Updated Interface

Workstation Pro and Player have a fresh new face that supports the latest HiDPI 4K display resolutions for both Host (UI) and Guest (desktop) scaling. With over 500 new feature icons as well as updated product icons, the Workstation family has never looked so good.

The all new Workstation in 4K

Stretch Mode

Guests can now be ‘Stretched’ to fit displays with higher DPI without adjusting the guest resolution: console windows can be made larger and readable, and older OS’s with lower resolutions look like they’re supposed to.

Console views now scale on 4K and other HiDPI screens

One-Click-SSH into Linux VM

If you’re using Windows 10 version 1803 or greater, you’ll also have access to the new ‘One-Click-SSH’ feature to rapidly open up a secure shell to a Linux VM. This feature also works for remote connected vSphere, ESXi and Workstation hosts (network connectivity directly to the VM’s IP is required.)

Right-Click > SSH > Get Working

Enhanced 3D Hardware Accelerated Graphics Engine: DirectX 10.1

New in Workstation is Direct3D 10.1 capabilities, allowing games and applications which require DirectX 10.1 to run where they could not before. D3D 10.1 was an important step beyond D3D 10 because it adds Ant-Aliasing and Geometry shaders, and serves as a fallback for many DX11 games and applications that otherwise would not run.

DirectX 10.1 Graphics in Workstation 15

vSphere 6.7 Support + Hosts and Clusters View

Workstation 15 supports ESXi 6.7 virtual hosts as well as deploying vCenter Server Appliance 6.7 with the vCSA deployment wizard.

When connected to remote vSphere environments, Workstation now has awareness of Data Centers, Hosts and also Clusters, for greater visibility into remote environment topologies.

Hosts and Cluster view for remote vSphere connections

 

And That’s Not All…

Workstation also uses Virtual Hardware Platform Version 16, which includes many updates around Performance, Security and supporting the latest hardware and software technologies, including:

  • Improved Virtual NVMe Device Performance
  • Important Security Fixes (Spectre, Meltdown and L1TF)
  • Virtual Trusted Platform Module
  • UEFI Secure Boot
  • IOMMU
  • VBS (Device Guard, Credential Guard) Support (guest only)

Virtual Networking Controls (Workstation Pro Only)

Network Simulation: Workstation Pro can introduce Latency, as well as Packet Loss and Bandwidth Limits on Incoming and Outgoing traffic per Virtual NIC.

Network Rename: Workstation Pro allows users to rename networks for personalization and organization.

Virtualization Based Security

VMware Workstation 15 Pro and Player can each deliver a secure, managed virtual desktop capable of running the latest Virtualization Based Security technology such as Device Guard and  Credential Guard by providing a compliant virtual hardware platform. (Guest support only)

Workstation 15 contains a Virtual Trusted Platform Module device type, as well as UEFI Secure Boot and IOMMU, which are requirements for certain security applications and policy controls such as BitLocker.

Workstation also supports “nested” 3rd party hypervisors and hypervisor-based security functions, so features like Core Isolation and Hyper-V will run in supported VMs.

 

These, plus hundreds of bug fixes and general improvements make Workstation 15 our biggest release to date, and we’re so excited to share what 20 years of industry leading virtualization looks like!

 

Get your copy today!

Buy Now!

Workstation Tech Preview 2018 Now Available for Testing

A sneak peek into the future of VMware Workstation

The VMware Workstation team is very excited to announce the VMware Workstation Technology Preview 2018 is available now! This release includes many great new features that we’ve been working on and we would love to hear your feedback in our Tech Preview Community.
Cut to the chase and download the latest bits from our Tech Preview Community:
VMware Workstation Technology Preview 2018 community.

Or from MyVMware directly:

https://my.vmware.com/group/vmware/get-download?downloadGroup=WKST-TP-2018

What’s New

DirectX 10.1 – We are excited to introduce DirectX 10.1 support with Workstation 2018 Tech Preview. DX10.1 introduces several subtle differences over 10.0

DirectX 10.1 delivers the following graphics improvements:

  • Full MSAA (Multisample anti-aliasing) support
  • Shader Model 4.1 support
  • Cubemap array support

This enhancement allows users to run games that require DirectX 10.1, and improves performance for DX10.0 games and apps. Test it out and let us know how what you think about the graphics quality and performance.

This feature is for both Windows and Linux hosts.

REST API – Workstation Tech Preview 2018 delivers a brand new RESTful API interface for automating virtual machines management. With the REST API you can perform VM operations like VM inventory management, VM power management, cloning, networking, IP and MAC address gathering, and more.

Use the API to include Workstation in your development pipeline to rapidly clone, configure, spin up and run automated tests within your VMs, and then destroy them when finished to repeat the process from your desired state.

Note: This is currently available for Windows host only.

How to test:

  1. Install VMware Workstation Tech Preview 2018 on your host.
  2. Workstation REST API follows exactly the same standard as Fusion REST API. Check out William Lam’s blog for details how to config and use the API. https://www.virtuallyghetto.com/2017/07/vmware-fusion-2017-tech-preview-adds-rest-api-support.html 

Windows 10 High DPI support – We have improved our support for High DPI configurations from both a Host and a Guest perspective:

  • Host level high DPI support. Workstation UI will auto detect the host level DPI and auto adjust the layout to meet this DPI. For example, if the original DPI scaling of your host display is 100% and you change it to 200%, Workstation UI will automatically update its layout.
    • This is extremely useful for multimonitor scenarios, when you have different DPI settings for each monitor, when you move Workstation UI from one monitor to another monitor with different DPI, the UI will automatically adapt to DPI of the monitor it’s being drawn on.
  • Guest DPI sync with host. When there is DPI change on the host side, the guest OS will be able to adjust its DPI to match the host DPI.

This feature requires both host and guest to be Windows 10.

ESXi Host/cluster view when connecting to vCenter – We’ve add a new Hosts and Clusters view when using Workstation to connect to a vCenter Server from Workstation. Users now have visibility to navigate to non-VM objects (ESXi hosts, Resource Pool and vApp) and their respective relationship hierarchy (i.e. Datacenter > Cluster > Resource Pool > vApp). Users can also switch back to the ‘flat’ VM view with a single click.

USB Auto Connect to virtual machine – Workstation 2018 Tech Preview provides a long-requested feature for managing USB device access.  When users plug in an USB device, (a USB storage device for example) this USB device can be automatically connected to a powered on virtual machine without having to manually add the device. This is currently available only to Windows hosts.

Linux Host Wayland Support – Workstation can now run on Linux hosts using the new Wayland desktop architecture. We expect full coverage here, so we encourage users to try this out and let us know in the Tech Preview community if you experience any issues.

 

Installation Notice

To run this Technology Preview, users should uninstall previous versions of Workstation before installing this software.  Note that the drivers included in this preview have NOT been signed (we only get our release build drivers signed), so Windows will prompt you accordingly during installation.

The system requirements for this Technology Preview remain the same as VMware Workstation Pro 14. See this VMware Workstation Document for more detailed system requirements. 

This Technology Preview includes changes to the underlying virtualization platform, which is under active development. There are no guarantees that changes in this preview will be forward-compatible with other VMware software, nor that these changes will be present in future supported releases of VMware Workstation. 

Uninstallation Notice

To uninstall the VMware Workstation Technology Preview:

  1. 1. Uninstall VMware Tools from each virtual machine used with the Technology Preview
  2. 2. Ensure that all virtual machines are downgraded to be compatible with an earlier version of VMware Workstation (VM > Manage > Change Hardware Compatibility…)
  3. 3. Exit VMware Workstation Technology Preview 2018
  4. 4. Remove VMware Workstation Technology Preview 2018 via the standard application uninstallation procedure

Resolved Issues:

The virtual machine console displays a black screen 
After you upgrade from VMware Workstation 12.x Pro to VMware Workstation14 Pro and power on a virtual machine, the virtual machine might display a black screen.

This issue is now resolved.

Some VM tabs are missing and need to be manually reopened each time VMware Workstation Pro is relaunched
When multiple VM tabs have been opened and Workstation is relaunched, some VM tabs are missing. Each missing tab must then be opened manually.

This issue is now resolved.

Import of a virtual machine with a VMware Paravirtual SCSI disk adapter type might fail
When you use VMware Workstation or VMware Fusion to import a virtual machine with a VMware Paravirtual SCSI (PVSCSI) disk adapter type, the import operation might fail with the following error:
Invalid target disk adapter type: pvscsi

This issue is now resolved.

We really appreciate your help testing this software. Please share your feedback in our VMware Workstation Technology Preview 2018 community.  We will try to answer any questions that you may have, and we’ll investigate any issues that are raised. We also encourage users to also share other thoughts about how we can improve or enhancements that you would like to see in future releases.

Thank you!

– The VMware Workstation Team

Celebrate 10 Years on the Mac with this once-in-a-lifetime deal!

This year at VMworld we had a special treat for our attendees with our Fusion 10th Anniversary Collector Box. Outside the box it says Fusion 10 all over, but with the box came a USB card that has you covered on all platforms: Workstation 14 Pro for Windows, Workstation 14 Pro for Linux and Fusion 10 Pro for Mac.

Of course this is great if you were lucky enough to attend VMworld, but what if you didn’t?

Out of luck, right?

Not anymore!

We pulled back a curtain in the storage room and found a whole crate of boxes that didn’t make it into the hands of our users, so we’re making them available to you for only $160!

That’s right, for the price of a new copy of Fusion 10 Pro with this box you get 2 copies of Workstation 14 Pro, a copy of Fusion 10 Pro* AND a very svelte collector tin and coaster for your office!

Over $660 in just software for only $160!

What else is there to say? If you dig cross platform virtualization, this the best deal you’ll find on the web today. Hurry while supplies last!

Buy Now! > vmwaremerchandise.com

 

*Includes a ‘Thank You’ card insert which contains 3 keys: 1 Fusion 10 Pro Full License Key, 1 Workstation 14 Pro for Windows NFR Key, and 1 Workstation 14 Pro for Linux NFR Key. “NFR” keys are promotional keys and will unlock all capabilities of the software but do not include entitlement for filing support requests or major-version upgrade discounts. Offer is in USD and only available in the United States.

Workstation 14 Pro and Player Now Available!

We are proud to announce the general availability of VMware Workstation 14 Pro and VMware Workstation 14 Player.

Download It Here!

Buy or Upgrade Here!

What’s in the release?

These releases build on a long tradition of leading edge virtualization capabilities, and this year we’ve introduced new features that will help IT Professionals and Businesses be more productive and more secure.

Virtual Hardware Platform 14

Workstation 14 Pro builds from the newest vSphere Virtual Hardware Platform, now at version 14, and with it delivers new features such as support for:
– Microsoft Device Guard and Credential Guard “Virtualization Based Security” feature support for Windows 10 Guests (Guests only at this time)
– A new Virtual NVMe device for faster disk access on SSD storage and a requirement for vSAN testing
– UEFI Secure Boot, required for VBS and supported with ESXi 6.5 Virtual Guests.
– A new Virtual Trusted Platform Module which is used to manage keys for guest encryption services such as BitLocker.
– Support for the latest Intel Kabylake and AMD Ryzen CPUs

These features are available for Workstation 14 Pro as well as Workstation 14 Player.
Workstation Player is available for commercial use with a license, but is free for personal use.

Workstation Pro: The Master of Local Desktop Virtualization.

Workstation 14 Pro adds upon this with new Virtual Network Simulation features. We’ve had Network Packet Loss and Bandwidth before, but we have now added Network Latency to the mix, configurable for both Incoming and Outgoing traffic for each virtual network adapter. This feature makes it easy to test the resiliency of your applications under harsh network conditions.

Workstation 14 Pro also allows users to stay organized with custom network renaming.

We’ve of course also added support for Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, known also as build 1709 or ‘Redstone 3’, which includes Windows Server 2016, as both Host and Guest. On the Linux side we have added support for Ubuntu 17.04, and Fedora 26 as both Host and Guest.

Seamless vCenter Deploy

For users looking to test the vCenter Server Appliance, Workstation Pro now provides a guided wizard to make the deployment effortless.

New Remote Controls

When connected to vSphere, users can now control Power operations for ESXi hosts. Power them off, Reboot them or bring them in or out of Maintenance mode right from Workstation Pro.

The Essential Virtualization Tool

All this and numerous bug fixes, small enhancements, and performance gains leveraging newer CPU hardware features for virtualization are what continue to make Workstation Pro the essential tool for IT professionals, and Workstation Player the ideal solution for secure virtual desktops.

Announcing VMware Workstation 14

VMware Workstation 14: Pro & Player

It’s about that time, and this year we’re very proud of the advancements we’ve made with our original flagship products, VMware Workstation Pro and Workstation Player.

Once released this October, in addition to supporting Microsoft’s Fall updates for Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016, and updated Linux support for Fedora 26 and Ubuntu 17.04, Workstation 14 Pro will deliver enhanced security with support for Virtualization Based Security (VBS) features of Windows 10 Enterprise and Windows Server 2016 Guests, improved Virtual Networking, and added new support and controls for working with vSphere and the vCenter Server Appliance.

Virtualization Based Security: Device Guard and Credential Guard in a Virtual Machine

The Virtual Hardware Platform also includes support for the latest processors from both Intel and AMD while adding new Virtual Firmware features such as UEFI and Secure Boot.

Along with the existing network speed and packet loss simulator, a new Network Latency Simulator further enables developers to run tests and simulate a specific network environment, including distance and network quality to test application resiliency. This and other advanced networking features will enable administrators to customize the name of virtual network adapters for better organization.

Network Simulation Control

For vSphere administrators looking to test the latest VMware vSphere technology, Workstation 14 Pro provides a new installation walkthrough. Quickly and easily deploy the VMware vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) in a virtual machine on Workstation Pro to create a full, virtual, software-defined data center stack on your Windows or Linux PC.

Effortlessly deploy the vCenter Server Appliance OVA

New Remote vSphere Controls

Workstation 14 Pro has added controls when interacting with remote ESXi hosts, directly or through vCenter, with new options for Host Reboot, Shutdown and to toggle Maintenance Mode on ESXi hosts.

Added Host Power + Maintenance Operations

 

VMware Workstation 14 Player

VMware Workstation 14 Player is a streamlined offering in the Workstation 14 product line, and leverages the same hypervisor technology platform as Workstation 14 Pro.  As such, Player gets many of the same benefits of it’s big brother Workstation Pro including performance, bug fixes, and updated hardware and OS support. Like Pro, Player can now also run Windows Virtualization Based Security VMs with Device Guard and Credential Guard, making it useful for delivering compliant corporate desktops in a secure container to end users.

For businesses and enterprises, Workstation Player gives users the power to run restricted VMs that comply with corporate policy. Combined with VBS security features, this commercial solution is designed for businesses looking to run a single, secure, virtual desktop on a corporate or BYO PC.

Workstation 14 Player will also be available for free for personal, non-commercial use.

 

Customers who purchased VMware Workstation 12.5 Pro or VMware Workstation 12.5 Player between Aug 22 and November 1st, 2017 will receive a free electronic upgrade to VMware Workstation 14 Pro and VMware Workstation 14 Player respectively. No action is required for this free upgrade.  

Please see our FAQ

 

Availability and Pricing 
VMware Workstation 14 Pro and VMware Workstation 14 Player will be available in early October, from vmware.com for $249.99 and $149.99 respectively.

VMware Workstation 11, 12 and 12.5 customers can upgrade to VMware Workstation 14 Pro for $149.99. VMware Player 7 Pro and VMware Workstation 12 Player customers can upgrade to Workstation 14 Player for $79.99.

Workstation Pro Tech Preview 2017 Available Now

The VMware Workstation team is proud to announce the VMware Workstation Technology Preview 2017 release! This release includes many great new features that we’ve been working on and we would love to hear your feedback through our Tech Preview Discussion Community.

What’s New

New OS Support and Platform Features

  • Windows 10 Creator Updates Support. This latest member of Windows 10 family is now supported by VMware Workstation Tech Preview 2017, as both host and guest.
  • Other New OS Support. Workstation Tech Preview 2017 adds support of a variety of new operating systems including Ubuntu 17.04 and Fedora 26. If you are running these latest operating systems, we would like to hear your feedback on how they perform with this Tech Preview release. If you are using other OSes in Workstation Tech Preview 2017, we would also like to learn your feedback.
  • Guest VBS Support – Security is one of the most critical aspects for information technology and there is no difference in virtualization. With the new platform, we are excited to invite you to try VBS (Virtualization Based Security) within Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016 running as guest operating systems in VMware Workstation Tech Preview 2017. Guest VBS Support is still under actively development and we would like to hear your feedback such as user experience and performance.
  • UEFI Secure Boot – One of the more interesting features of vSphere 6.5 is the adoption of Secure Boot for ESXi. We are happy to announce this great security feature is also adopted by VMware Workstation Tech Preview 2017!
  • Virtual NVMe support – NVMe is becoming increasingly important in the storage market. With the new virtual hardware platform, VMware Workstation Tech Preview 2017 is able to take advantage of the NVMe (NVM Express) controller which is also supported in ESXi 6.5.

Networking Features:

  • Rename Virtual Networks – Many users would like to customize the name of virtual network adapters, especially for powered users who may have several of them in building a virtualization lab. With VMware Workstation Tech Preview 2017, you can rename networks in the Virtual Network Editor.  This feature currently is only available for Windows host operating systems. Try it and let us know how it works.
  • Network Latency Simulation – Testing software and applications with Workstation Pro is very popular because of its convenience and cost-efficiency. Now with the new Network Latency Simulation feature, along with the existing network speed and packet loss simulator, you can easily simulate a specific network environment using VMware Workstation Tech Preview 2017. Simply enable this feature by checking the new options in Network Adapter Advanced Settings.
  • IP Address Display on VM Console – You don’t have to log into your VM to check the IP and MAC addresses.  With VMware Workstation Tech Preview 2017, these information is directly displayed on your VM console. The latest VMware Tools is needed to enable this feature.

Improved vSphere Integration

  • vSphere/ESXi Host Power Operation – Many users connect to vSphere ESXi and vCenter with VMware Workstation to remotely manage virtual machines. Now you can also perform power operations to ESXi hosts, including Enter/Exit maintenance mode, restart and shutdown, and directly from VMware Workstation Tech Preview 2017.
  • Import VCSA – VMware Workstation is the best solution to run and learn VMware datacenter products on a local machine. With improved OVF/OVA support, you can import VCSA (VMware vCenter Server Appliance) to VMware Workstation Tech Preview 2017 much easier than before.

There are some known issues so be sure to check out the ‘What’s New’ document in the Tech Preview community. The download is available for free to VMTN Community users, and we implore that this build is only for testing and evaluation purposes. While we make every effort to ensure every build we release is stable and solid, this is a pre-release build that is still in development and as such we do NOT recommend using this build on production systems.

We of course don’t guarantee that any features will make it to a generally available and fully supported release, but we’re eager to hear your feedback on our progress.

So go on, grab the build from our community, give it a test drive on your lab machine and tell us what you think!

Download VMware Workstation Pro Tech Preview 2017!

Using VMware Workstation Pro as the perfect demo tool

Matthew Evans

Matthew Evans

By Matt Evans.

An EUC Senior Specialist SE based in the UK. Matt has been with VMware for 9 months and has been working in the Server based Computing\EUC space for 20 years. Outside of work he is interested in music and running, having completed the London Marathon in April.

As a member of the End User Compute Specialist Sales Engineer team, I use VMware’s cloud hosted demo environment 99% of the time. However, we have all been in the situation where we need to demonstrate the solution but there is no network connection available. That’s one of the reasons I built a VMware Horizon environment in Workstation Pro. The other reason is that the ‘techie’ in me wants to have an environment that I have free rein in. As well as my Horizon environment, I built a Windows 10 virtual machine so that I had a Windows 10 device to manage from my AirWatch demo lab.

The core virtual machines in my demo lab that runs in Workstation Pro is:

  • Windows 2012 R2 – Vmware Horizon Server
  • Windows 2008 R2 – Active Directory, DNS and DHCP
  • Windows 2012 R2 – Workspace ONE components
  • Windows 2012 R2 – RDS Host
  • Windows 10 – VDI desktop
  • Windows 8 – VDI desktop
  • Windows 10 – Managed endpoint by AirWatch (Saas)

As I said I am techie at heart and I like to use three 3rd party tools with my demo lab to enable me too deep dive, create screenshots and shadow my iPhone, now let me explain.

Apowersoft Phone Manager

VMware Workstation Pro supports USB devices which is critical to this tool. I can connect USB devices, such as my iPhone, to my laptop and map them through to the Virtual Machine. As part of my Horizon demo I always like to show the user experience from an iPhone connecting to a VDI or RDSH application as well as what the Workspace ONE portal looks like and what the user experience looks like.

Apowersoft Phone Manager is similar to iTunes, in the way it helps you manage your device. The one feature that it offers that iTunes does not, is the ability to shadow the device, you can see the Workspace ONE app running on my phone below. You can also switch to full screen mode. Being able to shadow the device means that can deliver a demo from my iPhone or iPad and display it through Workstation Pro and onto a larger screen, typically a projector.

I tend to make screenshots of this type of demo as well as documenting the setup and configuration of Horizon, for example. This leads me on nicely to the next tool.

Apowersoft Phone Manager

Apowersoft Phone Manager

Lightscreen

Typically I deliver my product demonstrations out of VMware Test Drive, which is managed cloud environment, therefore software updates are managed centrally and not done by me. That’s one of the reasons I use Workstation Pro to run my own demo lab, so I can go through the experience of updating and managing the environment as I would like. When I go through the update I tend to take screenshots that I can then use for custom presentations or share with customers and partners so they know what to expect when they go through the updates themselves. It also helps to take screenshots to help articulate a configuration or specific feature with a customer when a real time screen-sharing tool is not an option. As Workstation Pro allows clipboard redirection between my host OS (laptop) and virtual machine it is very easy for me to take screenshots and then copy them out of the Virtual Machine into One Drive.

Within Lightscreen I configure a hotkey to take the screenshot, a directory to store the image in and also whether I want to capture the whole screen or just the active window – I tend to use the active window. Then I just run through my sequence, click the hotkey when required and finally when I have finished, copy the images out of the Virtual Machine and paste them to my local drive.

Apowersoft Phone Manager

Apowersoft Phone Manager

ASIDE: The one feature that could improve Lightscreen would be if you could also capture short video files, even if that was limited to say 10 seconds.

Apowersoft Phone Manager

Apowersoft Phone Manager

Glasswire

In my opinion, I have saved the best until last. Glasswire offers Network Monitoring, Threat Monitoring and a Firewall. Because my Virtual Machines are pretty isolated in Workstation Pro I am not really using the software for its main intended purpose. However, I love the Network Monitoring aspect. Being able to monitor the network gives me the visibility of what processes are running, what they are doing and what bandwidth they are using. A good example of its use case for me would be to look at the different protocols we support in Horizon and how they perform.

As you may know we support Blast, PCoIP and RDP within Horizon, and Glasswire enables me to monitor exactly what they are doing – sorry but I did warn you I was a techie at heart. The screenshot below shows all my active processes and their bandwidth usage over a 5 minute period, the time period can be adjusted as you can see in the top right corner.

Glasswire

Glasswire

Let me give you an example of a customer scenario. I was involved in a project where we planned to leverage the customer’s internal Java based VPN client to secure a connection for remote workers and then automatically trigger a connection to a cloud based Virtual Desktop. To be able to configure this process we needed to know which processes were active when a connection was established, if they only used HTTPS and what the differences would be if we connected using the HTML5 client rather than the standard Windows Client. Firstly I logged into my Windows client machine in Workstation Pro and launched the Horizon Client, I then made a connection to a hosted Windows 10 machine and checked Glasswire. From the image below you can see that the Horizon client has two processes running, both of which are making an HTTPS connection to the same host.

Glasswire

Glasswire

Secondly, I wanted to see how the Horizon connection varied when using the HTML5 client rather than the Windows client. The HTML5 client is represented by Chrome, as that was the browser I was using. It is still using HTTPS but in this instance it is a single connection to hv6emea.vmwdemo.com

Glasswire

Glasswire

With the help of this information we were able to configure the VPN client to pass these connections through giving the customer end users and simple and familiar use case.

Running Glasswire in a clean virtual machine in Workstation Pro is ideal as it allows me to remove many of the other processes that could dilute the information I am trying to gather,

Your Go

Without Workstation Pro I would have had to install my demo lab on my native endpoint, which just wouldn’t be viable due to requirements of AD, DHCP, DNS and in some case multiple versions of the same software. Another option would have been to pay for cloud resource to run the virtual machines. This generally is a good option but I want access to all the components, for example the Hypervisor or AD Controller, which is not always an option with Cloud based environments and I wanted to guarantee 100% control.

Try Workstation Pro for Windows, or Workstation Pro for Linux, for free, today.

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