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VMware Workstation Zealot

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Category Archives: VMware Workstation

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.

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.

Hypervisor Security Matters

securely-vmware

As I’m sure you noticed, we’ve delivered a flurry of patch-releases for Fusion and Workstation in the last few weeks. Want to know why? Because security matters.

More visibility

The Pwn2Own competition at the CanSecWest conference put a huge bounty on ‘vmescape‘. They’re not the first to do this, and they won’t be the last. And I want to be clear up front, we’re delighted that they helped us make our products more robust, and more secure.

For those not following this closely, ‘vmescape’ is the challenge of executing code on a host machine, that originated on a virtual machine. In other words, you have to execute something on a virtual computer, that tricks the hypervisor, such as Fusion, Workstation, ESXi, etc, in to passing that code through to the host computer, effectively breaking out of the guest with the intent of controlling or damaging the host.

While the successful exploits themselves are interesting to note, the likelihood of this causing actual damage to you, in the real world is pretty small. Partly because of the nature and complexity of the technology involved, and partly because of the bevy of unknowables of a real production system. Mike Foley, one of our foremost security gurus, notes:

“VM Escape is not the threat your security guy thinks it is. It’s really, really hard to do.”

Hard to do, but still imperative that we fix. And so we have. With an abundance of gratitude to our incredibly talented security team, working directly with our multi-discipline engineering teams, we think we’ve been on top of things.

Platform security is critically important

Virtualization technology today is used more widely, and in more critical systems than ever. With VMware having such a prominent footprint both on the desktop and in the data center, we take our role and responsibility in this very seriously.

While many of our Fusion & Workstation customers are considered ‘consumers’, (i.e. they have a single copy installed on their own personal machine), the majority of our customers are business, both small and large. Security for the end-user is important, but when we’re talking about corporate systems and virtual desktops that connect to those systems, the need for an air-tight virtualization stack becomes an imperative.

To that end, we’ve delivered 3 critical patches for both Fusion and Workstation (both Pro and Player), each addressing different security issues documented in our Security Advisory announcements (which can be found here), all within the past 3 weeks.

We understand that this makes it tricky for you. Updating software is never fun – even if it’s fully automated – and we appreciate the anxiety we may have caused you, but I hope you agree, it was worth it

Collaboration is Key

We’re very proud of our engineering teams. Cross collaboration between them is critical when addressing complex issues, made more difficult by the need for rapid delivery. And of course while patching is critical, maintaining a high level of product quality is something we refuse to compromise on.

We work directly with security researchers who demonstrate some pretty slick exploits at several security shows, and we’re keen to see that trend continue. In this day-and-age, when breaches and data privacy issues are making mainstream headlines, we couldn’t do this without the collaboration we get from the community. We are immensely grateful to you.

Now, Secure yourself

It’s always important to stay up to date with security patches for all software you own/use/control. If your software hasn’t auto-updated already, get the latest patches [here]. And while we have your security attention, we recently came up with a nice little way to use Fusion and Workstation to help increase both your own security and privacy when dealing with online threats.

For this use case, we have a nice summary infographic and video, with more detailed writeups for safely surfing the Internet with Fusion and Workstation [linked respectively].

Using Workstation to Browse the Web More Safely

Did you know you can use VMware Workstation or Fusion to safely browse the web? Check out our video and learn more below!

A quick History Lesson

During the Internet’s infancy, ‘Surfing’ the World Wide Web was an exhilarating experience. (complete with a soundtrack!) It wasn’t called ‘Web Surfing’ without good reason, although we don’t really refer to it that way anymore.

The Internet was great, but in addition to being a place to share ideas it needed to be a place for consumer commercial activity in order to gain the resources (i.e. corporate sponsorship and investment) needed to grow.

Online retail had overtaken buying things from brick-and-morter stores as far back as 2013, and the statistics only show Internet usage growing.

With bring the most connected generation in the history of the world, we are also now gathering more information than ever.

Things start to go Wrong

We now live in a world where a simple transparent 1×1 pixel .gif can be used to follow and track our online behaviour an endless number of sites across all of your devices. Social media hooks are built into every page for shareability, allowing groups like Facebook, Twitter and Google to learn more about what you click than ever before.

On the darker side of that equation, you have lots of potential for misuse and abuse of this new distributed digital landscape. Ad networks can unknowingly distribute malware, pages can ‘click-bait’ you into accidentally opening a barrage of popups or worse, and mobile devices have not had the same maturity as desktop devices so their ability to block unknown threats is minimal at best.

A Potential Solution

So, what does this have to do with VMware or VMware Workstation?

Workstation can be used to isolate all of this behaviour away from the computer that you are using, keeping you safe and protected.

Because of the isolation provided by the VMware hypervisor technology, using a virtual machine in Workstation effectively creates a sandbox for a second (or third, or fourth…) Operating System on the same computer you’re running.

It runs it the new OS in an isolated way with respect to Memory, CPU, and physical hardware devices. To be cliche about it: “What happens in the VM stays in the VM.”

So when something attacks a browser that’s running in a Virtual Machine sandbox, it has no way of impacting the main computer where you might have more sensitive information stored, like credit card or account numbers or access to otherwise protected networks that are available to the host computer.

And because it’s a virtual machine, you can do other interesting things as well, such as having a ‘snapshot’ for a roll back point, put it on a different network than the physical computer itself, or even bring that same VM to different computers to avoid having to use someone else’s browser.

Kid Friendly Internet-ing

It also makes sense if you have kids. I helped my sister out by having my nephew use a virtual machine. He double-clicks the ‘Kids Internet’ button on the desktop, it fires up a Linux virtual machine, and everything that he and his little brother click on can be easily undone by rolling back to a snapshot taken earlier.

It’s an interesting use case, and makes a lot of sense, especially for the privacy-conscious. There are OS’s out there designed specifically for anonymity such as Tails, Discreete Linux, Whonix, or Qubes OS.

We really think that our users would get a lot of benefit from this sort of a setup, so we put together a short Infographic and Video to share the story.

Have a look!

Every Day Is Thanksgiving

Yes, I know that’s a cheesy title, but in the office where we control Workstation and Fusion every day starts with a conversation about you. We talk about things that are trending on Twitter & Facebook, what’s happening on our community forums, and what people are asking us in our inboxes.

Some days it’s all good news, others it bad. Often it’s a mixture, but every day we’re grateful that you’re engaged with us, so that together we can build a better product.

Back in the summer we ran a competition to see what you’d say about us on YouTube. The results surprised us. I can honestly say that we were not expecting the volume of entries that our little give-away generated.

We are truly thankful that you are our customer.

Please stay engaged. Negative or positive, we want to hear your thoughts on the current product, and where you think it should go next.

In the meanwhile, in no order, here’s my favorite top 10 videos from the competition

The one with the cute kid

The one about a zoo

The product demo we should have made ourselves

The one about a whole career

The one that scared us a bit

The other one with cute kids

The one with the gamer

The one with the dog

And finally, the third one with a cute kid

Thank you

VMware Workstation target at the PwnFest hacking competition

VMware Workstation is among the targets of the PwnFest hacking competition. At this event, which is organized along the Power of Community security conference in Seoul, security researchers are demonstrating their attack capabilities. The event is modeled after the well-known Pwn2Own competition.

Earlier today at the event, the 360 Marvel Team and security researcher Lokihardt (JungHoon Lee) used the same issue to demonstrate that they could execute code on the VMware Workstation host from the guest. We have received details on this issue directly from the researchers and we are now working on a solution. We have confirmed that the issue is limited to VMware Workstation and VMware Fusion and that ESXi is not affected.

We would like to thank the organizers of the event, the 360 Marvel Team, and Lokihardt for working with us to address the issue.

November 13 update
Today, we’ve published VMware Security Advisory VMSA-2016-0019 which documents the release of VMware Workstation 12.5.2 and VMware Fusion 8.5.2. These new Workstation and Fusion versions address the issue that was demonstrated at the PwnFest event. The issue has been assigned CVE identifier CVE-2016-7461.

– VMware Security Response Center and VMware Workstation Team

Workstation 12.5 Pro and Player now available!

Start your upgrade engines!

WS-125-boxes

The Workstation team is proud to announce general availability of VMware Workstation 12.5 Pro and VMware Workstation 12.5 Player! These updates are free for all VMware Workstation 12 Pro and Workstation 12 Player users.

Buy or Upgrade Now!

Users on Workstation 7 and greater are now eligible for upgrade pricing!

Current customers can grab the bits from below, or from our in-app upgrade feature:

Workstation Pro

vmware.com/go/getworkstation

Workstation Player

vmware.com/go/getplayer

Workstation Player works best for businesses when paired with Horizon FLEX. Did you know you can manage a whole fleet of user’s local virtual machines from a single management console?

This release supports the latest Windows 10 Anniversary Edition from Microsoft, and is ready to support Windows Server 2016 upon its release.

This release also includes numerous bug fixes, security updates and performance improvements, including:

A Linux host with kernel 4.6 fails to launch Workstation because the vmmon and vmnet drivers are not built successfully. This issue is resolved.
If you configure Revert to snapshot when a VM is powered off from Options-> Snapshots, the VM actually reverts to a snapshot when suspended. This issue is resolved.
On Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview host, help links do not appear. This issue is resolved.
Workstation menu View->Fit Guest Now does not work for Windows Vista guest with VMware Tools installed. This issue is resolved.
If your Windows host has an NVDIA GPU, you might hit the VMware Workstation unrecoverable error: (svga) when running a 3D application in the guest. This issue is resolved.
VMware Workstation Pro resolves an issue where you cannot boot virtual machine on a 64-bit Braswell N3150 processor and the following error appears:
- MONITOR PANIC: vcpu-0:VERIFY vmcore/vmm/main/cpuid.c:376 bugNr=1036521.
The guest OS uses the full amount of memory allocated to the virtual machine even if you try to limit the amount of memory used by the guest OS through the BCDEdit ‘truncatememory’ option. This issue is resolved.

There are many more fixes, please check out the Release Notes for Workstation Pro and the Release Notes for Workstation Player for more detail.

In Other News…

Did you hear we’re giving away 20 Oculus Rift headsets?

What are our users saying?

We put a camera in front of the door to our VMworld 2016 session (which you can watch here!) Well, in a couple of words, it sounds like this:

Workstation 12.5 Announced!

We’ve been holding in the surprise for some time now but on the keynote stage today at VMworld, Sanjay Poonan, EVP of our End user Computing business unit where Fusion and Workstation are situated, pulled the covers back and revealed the details about our big annual release.

This year we are delivering 2 updates to the Workstation product family: Workstation 12.5 Pro and Workstation 12.5 Player, and the big surprise is this: It’s a free upgrade for all current-version customers. So, if you’re on Workstation 12.5, you’re going to be able to upgrade to the latest version with full support for Windows 10 Anniversary edition, for free. We’ll also be adding Windows Server 2016 support when it comes available.

This is an exciting release for us because it marks the first time that we have provided a yearly update for no additional cost to current-version customers. We’ve been holding the surprise in for some time, so we’re very excited to finally share this with the world.

We’ve also changed how users can upgrade to the latest release. Users are eligible for upgrade pricing going back to Workstation 7. So, if you have an old Workstation license and haven’t upgraded in a few years, there’s never been a better time to upgrade!

This also marks the announcement of Fusion 8.5 and Fusion 8.5 Pro which you can read more about here.

We’re Giving Away 20 Oculus Rift Headsets. Want One?

Yes, you read that right. Twenty virtual reality headsets. Wow.

Of course, writing to me and asking for one won’t cut it; you have to work a little harder than that.

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