We’re excited to announce the latest release of VMware’s flagship desktop virtualization platform – VMware Workstation 17.5 Pro and VMware Workstation 17.5 Player. This new version adds several important security and automation features to help keep your virtual machines protected and easier to manage.

Enhanced VM Encryption

Workstation 17.5 introduces a new encryption scheme that provides stronger security for your virtual machines. New VMs will use this advanced encryption by default, while existing VMs can be upgraded. This ensures your VMs remain confidential and safe from unauthorized access.

Secure vTPM Support for Import and Export

For VMs using virtual Trusted Platform Modules (vTPMs), including Windows 11 VMs, Workstation now enables you to securely export and import templates without exposing sensitive vTPM data like encryption keys. This allows you to deploy from golden images while maintaining security boundaries.

Automation for vTPM VMs

Speaking of vTPMs, Workstation also adds new automation capabilities that allow you to programmatically control VMs protected by vTPMs. This includes new support in vmrun and the vmrest API to specify the vTPM unlock password when interacting with encrypted VMs.

Better OS Support

Workstation 17.5 updates support for the latest operating systems for Windows 11, Linux kernel 6.x and more. We’ve also moved to virtual hardware version 21, bringing performance improvements and compatibility enhancements.

As always, this release contains numerous bug fixes and smaller feature and accessibility enhancements as well.

VMware Workstation is relied upon every day by millions of IT professionals, developers, and tech enthusiasts across the globe. This release continues our commitment to moving the industry forward with hypervisor innovation, security, and an unmatched user experience.

If you already own a copy of Workstation 17, you can check for updates within the app.

Still on Workstation 16 or earlier? Download your 30-day trial of Workstation 17.5 Pro and check out all the new goodness today!

Release Notes

Workstation Pro: https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Workstation-Pro/17.5/rn/vmware-workstation-175-pro-release-notes/index.html

Workstation Player: https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Workstation-Player/17.5/rn/vmware-workstation-175-player-release-notes/index.html

Ready for Testing

It’s that time of year again! We’re aiming to get your feedback about some new features we’re looking to bring into the VMware Workstation product line this year.

This Tech Preview focuses on more low-level functionality, like a new VM encryption scheme and improved programatic support for VMs with vTPMs (like Windows 11). You can now not only perform operations on encrypted VMs via the REST API and vmrun, but you can also export and import VMs with vTPM requirements more securely using OVFTool.

What’s New?

Enhanced Security for VM Encryption:

We are introducing XTS algorithm for VM encryption and decryption for robust security. This is applicable for both existing and new VMs, for more information please follow this link.

Import/Export support for vTPM enabled VMs:

We have to be careful while importing/exporting/cloning vTPM enabled VMs as some critical keys/ciphers would be stored in vTPM which we should not migrated from one system to another accidentally or purposely, so we had come up with some standard procedure and enhancement while importing/exporting/cloning vTPM enabled machines.

Power Operation on Encrypted VMs via vmrun and vmrest

Both the local vmrun CLI and the local+remote vmrest REST API now support power operations on encrypted VMs and those with vTPMs. vmrun also includes support for the ‘gui’ flag for encrypted VMs.

Virtual Hardware 21

With HWv21 we’ve implemented NVMe 1.3 spec, along with a number of under-the-hood improvements, including the latest Guest OS and Linux kernel 6.x support.

Call To Action

How can you participate? It’s easy, and it’s free!

1. Download and install the Workstation 2023 Tech Preview
2. Check out the Testing Guide
3. Install or Upgrade Windows 11 and install VMware Tools! (step by step instructions in the Testing Guide)
4. Play some games, run some apps, do what you do!
5. Let us know how it went in the VMTN Workstation Tech Preview 2023 Community

Windows 11, new vTPM, Auto-Start VM at Boot and more

After much anticipation, we’re proud to be announcing the general availability of VMware Workstation 17 Pro and Player!

Let’s take a quick look at what’s new!

Windows 11

Support for Windows 11 Hosts and Guests – Create Windows 11 VMs on Linux and Windows 11 hosts. To provide this support, we delivered an mproved Virtual Trusted Platform Module and new ‘fast’ VM Encryption type.

Fast Encryption

Along with VM ‘Full Encryption’, we are introducing a ‘Fast Encryption’ capability to deliver maximum performance for VMs that use a vTPM.

Auto Start VMs

This new feature allows you to configure Virtual Machines to start automatically when your PC boots.

Encryption for Player

To deliver a Windows 11 supported TPM, VM encryption features have been extended to Workstation Player product to seamlessly create Windows 11 virtual machines

OpenGL 4.3 Graphics

• In Linux and Windows VMs Workstation now supports OpenGL 4.3 graphics

New Guest OS Support

In addition to Windows 11, we’ve added support for a plethora of new Guest Operating Systems with this release, including:

• Windows server 2022
• Ubuntu 22.04, 20.04, 22.10
• Debian 11.5, 12,
• Fedora 37, 36,
• RHEL 9
• FreeBSD 12, 13

How To Get Started?

Download the Trial by visiting: vmware.com/go/tryworkstation
Ready to buy? Head over to the VMware Online Store where we’re running a 30% off new licenses launch sale!

We’re excited about what we’ve been working on and would love to share with the community where we’re at with this year’s release.

With new features to support Windows 11, new graphics capabilities, and other useful features like auto-start VMs, we’re gearing up for a new major release of Workstation.

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Join the discussion in our Tech Preview VMTN Community!

What’s New?

Windows 11 Support

VMware Workstation for Windows and Linux now support Windows 11 operating systems for x86_64 CPU types.

Virtual Trusted Platform Module

In order to support Windows 11 requirements, a Trusted Platform Module is required. With this release, we have enhanced our Virtual TPM module by incorporating ‘Fast Encryption’, key auto-gen and key storage via Keychain with a TPM 2.0 virtual device profile that is compatible with Windows 11 system requirements. Of course, vTPM device can be added to any VM, but that VM must have either Full or Fast VM encryption enabled.

Fast Encryption 

With the new ‘fast encryption’ mode, only the most critical parts of the virtual machine’s local storage space are encrypted, dramatically improving overall VM performance but providing a secure enclave for sensitive data such as a TPM device. Fast Encryption can be enabled for all VM types from the VM Settings. > Encryption window, or during the New VM walkthrough.

Encryption Key Auto-Generate and Store

To enhance the new fast encryption model, Workstation can auto-generate a password for the user, and the local keychain is used by default to store the encryption key, relieving the user from having to type it in whenever their VM boots.

Graphics Enhancements

OpenGL 4.3

Workstation for Windows and Linux, when used with a Linux VM that has a kernel of 5.18 or newer and Mesa 22.1.1, should notice that OpenGL now reports its version at 4.3 and OpenGL ES at 3.10.

Autostart VMs

Workstation introduces a feature specifically for launching user-defined virtual machines when the PC boots.

Head on over to the VMTN Community!

And that’s it!
Download the bits!
Let us know what you think in the Workstation Tech Preview community!

Getting ready for Windows 11, the Windows 10 Guest OS type in Workstation 16.2 has been renamed ‘Windows 10 and Later’. This has a profile that supports Windows 10 by default, but can be adjusted to more fully support Windows 11. (i.e. Secure Boot, vTPM, CPU/RAM minimum requirements, etc).

We’re also shipping a currently-experimental vTPM device that boasts a reduced performance impact by employing a new encryption model, as well as several new options for managing Workstation installations at scale.

To use this experimental device, just add the following to your Windows 11 (or whatever) .vmx config file and restart Fusion:

managedVM.autoAddVTPM="software"

This replaces the need to do full-VM encryption, which we expect users to notice a happy performance increase for use cases that require a VTPM

As a Host operating system, running VMware virtual machines on Windows 11 with Workstation works just as it did on top of the more recent versions of Windows 10.

One change to note is that in this round we are finally deprecating the “Shared VM” feature code after over a year since we first announced it. Artifacts in the UI should no longer be present, Workstation can no longer be shared over the network like an ESXi host, and VMs configured to auto-start will not do so after installing this update. 

A big new feature this year is the updates to our Vulcan rendering engine on Workstation for Linux, which now supports Intel, AMD and Nvidia GPUs. OpenGL 4.1 and DirectX 11 graphics for Guests on Workstation for Linux hosts.

Read more in the Release Notes:
– Workstation Pro Release Notes
– Workstation Player Release Notes

It’s that time of year again!

The biggest sale of the year this time around offers up to 30% discount on your favorite Desktop Hypervisor products for Windows and Linux: VMware Workstation Pro and VMware Workstation Player!

Upgrades and new licenses have never been cheaper, with discounts on top of the already reduced 2020 pricing!

Upgrade from Workstation 12 Pro or Workstation 14 Pro to Workstation 16 Pro for only $140! (USD)
Or upgrade your copy of Workstation 12 Player or Workstation 14 Player to the latest Workstation 16 Player (commercial license) for only $105! (USD)

Why Workstation 16?
So many features!

• Dark Mode User Interface! Workstation has never looked this good!
• Latest Windows 10 20H2 Host and Guest Support, as well as popular Linux distributions like Ubuntu 20.10, RHEL,
• Build and run Containers and Kubernetes clusters out-of-the-box with vctl, kind and minikube
• DirectX 11 and OpenGL 4.1 3D Acceleration for incredible graphics
• Monster VMs with 128GB of RAM and up to 32 vCPUs
• Performance improvements, bug fixes and more!

Sale ends on Sunday Nov 29, so hurry before it’s too late!

Shop Now!

The Desktop Hypervisor team is proud to announce the general availability of VMware Workstation 16 Pro and Player!

Quick links:

VMware Desktop Hypervisor Product Page

Workstation Download Page

• Workstation 16 Pro Direct Download
  • Windows
  • Linux
• Workstation 16 Player Direct Download
  • Windows
  • Linux

Workstation Evaluation Page

• vmware.com/go/tryworkstation

To recap some of the new features we’ve brought to this release:

• Containers and Kubernetes support with ‘vctl‘ and kind
• DirectX 11 and OpenGL 4.1 Support
• Monster VMs – 128GB RAM, 32 vCPU, 8TB Disks, 10 NICs, 8GB Graphics Memory
• Hyper-V Support: Use Hyper-V, WSL2, Device Guard / Credential Guard and Workstation at the same time
• New Dark Mode UI
• Linux Vulcan Rendering Engine
• Latest OS Support
• USB 3.1 Device support
• Sandboxed Graphics Rendering Engine
• Improved Accessibility features (Section 508)

vctl documentation

Release Notes

It is our pleasure and privilege to announce the upcoming VMware Desktop Hypervisor product lines for 2020: VMware VMware Workstation 16 and VMware Fusion 12

Looking for a more Mac-centric perspective?  Check out the Fusion 12 blog!

Quick Overview

Building on over 20 years of local virtualization excellence, the latest releases of our favorite virtualization tools deliver some amazing new capabilities for IT Admins, for Developers, and for everyone else.

Top of the list is bringing Kubernetes and Containers to Workstation for Windows with the CLI ‘vctl’

Developers with Fusion can already use ‘vctl’ to build, run, push or pull containers, and now we’re bringing vctl to Workstation for Windows.

vctl can now also deploy custom Kubernetes clusters with newly added support for ‘kind’ – a tool for creating developer-defined local clusters using containers as “nodes.”

The aim is to provide developers a reliable setup for establishing a rapid ‘inner loop’ pipeline of development and code iteration to build modern applications, or even when working on the codebase of Kubernetes itself.

Fusion 12 and Workstation 16 will be shipping in VMware’s Fiscal Q3 which ends in October. Don’t want to wait? We’re still collecting feedback from our Fusion and Workstation Tech Previews!

New Pricing for Workstation Pro, Fusion Pro

Workstation Pro has undergone some changes as well. Firstly, the upgrade and new license pricing are now  $99 for existing customers, or $199 for new customers. For individual customers, are also now licensing Workstation for use on up to 3 personal devices. And now, those devices can now also be a Mac by simply applying your Workstation Pro license key in Fusion Pro.

Workstation Player continues to be available as Free for Personal Use, and offers commercial licenses at $149 for new licenses and $79 for upgrades, while also now providing license portability with Fusion Player. These changes should make it easy for organizations to license many workstations without necessarily knowing if their users will choose Macs or PCs beforehand.

And by popular demand from our customers with larger footprints, new commercial licenses for Workstation Pro and Player will be available for purchase from our Channel Partners with either 1 or 3 years of Support and Subscription, even if the order quantity is only 1. Customers at store.vmware.com can now optionally add SnS in increments of 1 unit as well.

SnS provides major-version upgrades and active support engagement for the duration of the term purchased, at a fraction of the cost of a new license or per-incident support agreement. In alignment with other VMware perpetually licensed products, SnS is required for orders placed through our channel partners, but remains optional for customers purchasing from store.vmware.com.

Technology Guarantee Program

Customers who buy VMware Workstation 15.5 Pro or Workstation 15.5 Player from August 15^th until Workstation 16 ships will also be automatically provided a version 16 key in their MyVMware portal.

New Features

Okay, it’s time to look a little more closely at some more new features.

Containers and Kubernetes

For developers, we’ve added support for Containers and Kubernetes with a new CLI tool: vctl!

Currently available in Fusion, vctl allows users to push, pull, build and run OCI container images, and now also includes the ability to deploy kind Kubernetes clusters.

In support of kind, vctl creates a ‘docker compatible’ socket for kind to connect to without modification, by using an implementation of containerd. We’re looking forward to working closely with the open source community to help support more tools and workflows as we continue to grow in this space!

Even better news is that it will ship with Workstation Player as well as Workstation Pro, making it accessible to everyone.

DirectX 11 and OpenGL 4.1

Workstation 16 will support running games and apps with Direct3D version 11, otherwise known as ‘DirectX 11’, or OpenGL 4.1. Users can now allocate up to 8GB of vRAM to your 3D accelerated guest to maximize gaming and 3D app performance. (vms must be configured for 16GB of RAM or more to unlock the 8GB vRAM option.)

vSphere 7 Compatibility

Workstation has been updated to support connections to vSphere 7 through ESXi and vCenter for remote VM operation and configuration, as well as providing workload mobility and  compatibility between the Desktops and Data Center virtual infrastructure. (Pro products are required for remote-connections)

Dark Mode UI

Upon launching Workstation 16 for Windows, the first thing users might notice is that we’ve added an all new Dark Mode feature to the Workstation Pro and Player UIs. This striking new look feels right at home on the latest versions of Windows 10, including the recently released 2004 build. (We’re holding out on screenshots while we put the final touches on the new UI

Sandboxed Graphics Rendering Engine

Workstation offers a new security enhancement feature: Sandbox Renderer. The SBR runs the virtual graphics engine in a separate thread with reduced privilege, making Fusion and Workstation more secure out-of-the-box without sacrificing performance or quality.

Linux Host: Vulkan Graphics Rendering Engine

With Workstation 16 for Linux, we’ve added a new rendering engine that takes advantage of the Vulkan API. Our new Vulkan renderer can deliver DirectX 10.1 and OpenGL 3.3 to vms even when using an integrated Intel GPU.

Improved Accessibility

We believe in making computing as inclusive as possible for everyone. To that end, we’ve improved our compliance with VPAT Section 508 to help users of all kinds get the full benefits of using virtual machines.

USB 3.1 Support + Performance & Bugfixes

In this release we’ve also added support for USB 3.1 virtual devices, allowing for USB 3.1 hardware devices to be passed into virtual machines with full driver support.

 Can’t wait to ship!

Delivering Fusion and Workstation is the result of a collaboration between many different teams across all of VMware, so we want to give thanks not only to our rockstar engineers, but to all the customers and Tech Preview users who have given us such great feedback in contribution to this incredible release. We look forward to hearing your experiences in our community!

If you want to have an early look at some of these features, we’re still collecting feedback from our Fusion and Workstation Tech Previews!

Today we’ve released a new Tech Preview with a first look at a big new feature: Containers.

A reminder that this is pre-release software and should be used for testing purposes only.

• Direct Download Windows
• Direct Download Linux
• Download Group Page
• Beta Community Forum
• Tech Preview Getting Started Guide

Containers are shipping…

Building and running containers has become a mainstay in modern cloud-based application development, but today if users want to build an app with containers and test it with different clients, you’d need multiple tools.

Recently, VMware Fusion introduced ‘vctl’, the command-line interface to our container platform. vctl gives users the control to Build, Run, Pull and Push OCI container images without needing another container runtime installed, while continuing to build and run virtual machines.

With the release of today’s Workstation 20H2 July Tech Preview, we’re beginning to bring the same container workflow of  ‘vctl’ to Workstation for Windows.

[Link to the Tech Preview Getting Started Guide]

vctl allows users to Build, Run, Pull and Push OCI container images using Workstation. By default vctl supports pulling directly from docker hub, but can be configured to pull images from any compatible registry such as Harbor.

This being our first release of this technology on Windows, we’re eager to hear feedback from the community about your experience. We’re working to deliver a container runtime that leverages the benefits of the VMware Workstation hypervisor stack, optimized for containers, to deliver an experience that supports the workflows of today in a familiar and friendly way.

We encourage users to test their container apps by doing a ‘vctl pull’ from docker hub or ‘vctl build’ in a directly with a standard Dockerfile, and fire it up with ‘vctl run’. Let us know how it goes and where we can improve!

[Link to the Tech Preview Getting Started Guide]

What else is new?

In addition to support for containers with vctl, we’re also looking for feedback in the following areas:

Vulkan renderer support for Linux Workstation.

Vulkan is seen as the successor to OpenGL and Workstation for Linux is testing a new Vulkan-based rendering engine.

This feature enables Linux hosts with Intel GPUs to provide 3D support with DX10.1 and OpenGL 3.3 to VMs, which was previously not possible without discrete GPUs from AMD or Nvidia.

• • If Workstation detects an Intel GPU is present and in use by X, it will default to the Vulkan renderer. No additional configuration necessary.
  • If AMD or Nvidia GPUs are in use by X it will default to the OpenGL renderer with DX11 and OpenGL 4.1 (currently in testing)

USB 3.1 controller support

USB 3.1 devices are now able to connect to virtual machines

Increased VM Maximums

VM Maximums have been increased to 32 vCPUs, 128 GB virtual memory, 8GB vRAM per virtual machine

• • On systems that support these configurations, virtual machines can now run with up to 32 virtual CPUs and 128GB of virtual memory. (i.e. 16 or more CPU cores and >128GB of RAM)
  • vGPU can be configured with 8GB of shared memory

Join us in the Tech Preview Community and share your experience!

A reminder that this is pre-release software and should be used for testing purposes only. 

• Direct Download Windows
• Direct Download Linux
• Download Group Page
• Beta Community Forum
• Tech Preview Getting Started Guide

With the release of VMware Workstation/Player 15.5.5, we are very excited and proud to announce support for Windows hosts with Hyper-V mode enabled! As you may know, this is a joint project from both Microsoft and VMware. You can also check out Microsoft’s blog here.

Direct Download:

• Workstation 15.5.5 Pro: Windows
• Workstation 15.5.5 Pro: Linux

It has been a long journey

• Since the introduction of Hyper-V, including Credential Guard and Device Guard, enabling any of these features prevented VMware Workstation from launching virtual machines. In order to satisfy our customers, VMware and Microsoft started a collaboration with the goal of fixing this problem.
  
• At VMworld 2019 San Francisco, VMware and Microsoft together made an announcement that we have jointly developed a project that adopts Microsoft Windows Hypervisor Platform (WHP) APIs.
• In January 2020, Workstation Tech Preview 20H1 was released, with support for hosts with VBS enabled being the target feature for testing.

How does VMware Workstation work before version 15.5.5? 

VMware Workstation traditionally has used a Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM) which operates in privileged mode requiring direct access to the CPU as well as access to the CPU’s built in virtualization support (Intel’s VT-x and AMD’s AMD-V).  When a Windows host enables Virtualization Based Security (“VBS“) features, Windows adds a hypervisor layer based on Hyper-V between the hardware and Windows.  Any attempt to run VMware’s traditional VMM fails because being inside Hyper-V the VMM no longer has access to the hardware’s virtualization support.

Introducing User Level Monitor

To fix this Hyper-V/Host VBS compatibility issue, VMware’s platform team re-architected VMware’s Hypervisor to use Microsoft’s WHP APIs. This means changing our VMM to run at user level instead of in privileged mode, as well modifying it to use the WHP APIs to manage the execution of a guest instead of using the underlying hardware directly.

What does this mean to you?

VMware Workstation/Player can now run when Hyper-V is enabled. You no longer have to choose between running VMware Workstation and Windows features like WSL, Device Guard and Credential Guard. When Hyper-V is enabled, ULM mode will automatically be used so you can run VMware Workstation normally. If you don’t use Hyper-V at all, VMware Workstation is smart enough to detect this and the VMM will be used.

System Requirements

To run Workstation/Player using the Windows Hypervisor APIs, the minimum required Windows 10 version is Windows 10 20H1 build 19041.264. VMware Workstation/Player minimum version is 15.5.5.

A big congratulation to the engineering teams from both Microsoft and VMware. This is a big milestone for both sides. We will still be working together on bugs reported by our customers, improving performance, and adding features to WHP based on customers’ requests.

A big thank you to our customers, to our passionate users! Thank you for being patient! Thank you for your valuable feedback! You are the only reason we have such a big joint project!

Enjoy running VMware Workstation on the latest Windows 10 20H1 with or without Hyper-V!

— The VMware Workstation Team