Today is an exciting day as VMware advances their End-User Computing vision with the general availability of View 5, Workstation 8, and Fusion 4. VMware is shipping to customers a simple way to deliver Windows based desktops as-a-service, locally or on a Mac.  The combination of empowered users and flexible IT as a service, enables a new working style that leads to a more connected enterprise.

VMware View™ 5 is here!

VMware View 5 represents a significant milestone in simplifying IT manageability and control, while providing a high fidelity desktop virtualization experience across the network. PCoIP enhancements that greatly reduce bandwidth utilization over LAN and WAN connections, advanced support of 3D graphics, and scalable unified communications integration for voice and video media services provide customers with the best user experience on their virtual desktops.

Learn more:

• Website – http://www.vmware.com/products/view/

• View 5 Anthem – Music Video! Now on youtube, you must watch this if you haven’t already!
  http://bit.ly/q5MMeD

• EUC Blog – more detailed information around features, vision, tips and trickshttp://blogs.vmware.com/euc/view/

What the Press are saying:

• “It appears that VMware wants to own virtualization not only in the data center and on public clouds, but also on the desktop – or, more precisely, on your workspace, no matter where you are or what device you’re using to access your applications… Most of us in the business world still work from PCs most of the time, so the rollout of the View 5 desktop virtualization software is probably the most immediately useful update coming out of VMware for end user devices this week.” – The Register, Timothy Prickett Morgan

• “VMware’s vision is to deliver a more user-centric, IT-as-a-service experience for the connected enterprise. In this new model, enterprises leverage hybrid cloud resources, while maintaining a managed, secure environment, and providing new ways for employees to collaborate across applications and data from any device, where and when a user needs it.” – ZDNet, Dana Gardner

Announcing VMware Fusion 4

You all know VMware Fusion 4 makes it a breeze to run your Windows and Mac applications side by side with incredible speed and reliability. With more than 90 new features, including optimization for today’s multicore Macs and OS X Lion, it’s never been easier to run Windows on a Mac. VMware Fusion 4 is available today at an introductory promotional price of $49.99 (instead of $79.99).

Learn more:

• Web page – http://www.vmware.com/products/desktop_virtualization/fusion/overview.html
• Blog – http://blogs.vmware.com/teamfusion/

Introducing VMware Workstation 8

We are incredibly excited about the release of VMware Workstation 8.  VMware Workstation is going to change the way technical professionals work with their VMs.  With over 50 new features including remote connectivity to vSphere, drag and drop uploads to vSphere, revamped UI, support for Micro Cloud Foundry, and the ability to run as a server, it’s going to help customers with their journey to the cloud.

Learn more:

• Web page – http://www.vmware.com/workstation
• Blog – http://blogs.vmware.com/workstation

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New Desktop Virtualization Product Releases

Highlights of VMware Workstation 7.1.4 are:

• Windows 7 SP1 and Ubuntu 10.10 are officially supported.
• Improved support for RHEL 6.0 and Fedora 14.
• Resolved customer reported USB device issues.
• Enhanced support script to gather additional technical information.
• Addressed several security, performance and usability issues.

VMware Workstation 7.1.4

Download: http://downloads.vmware.com/d/info/desktop_downloads/vmware_workstation/7_0

Release Notes: https://www.vmware.com/support/ws71/doc/releasenotes_ws714.html

VMware Player 3.1.4

Download: http://downloads.vmware.com/d/info/desktop_downloads/vmware_player/3_0

Release Notes: https://www.vmware.com/support/player31/doc/releasenotes_player314.html

VMware ACE 2.7.4

Download: http://downloads.vmware.com/d/info/desktop_downloads/vmware_ace/2_7

Release Notes: https://www.vmware.com/support/ace27/doc/releasenotes_ace274.html

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Workstation 7.1.4 Released

Hello, everyone,

Wanted to share a new VMware blog by Elliott Stewart for the personal desktop product documentation. The new blog addresses documentation questions, provides troubleshooting tips, and provides fresh information on Workstation, Fusion, Player, and ACE.

http://blogs.vmware.com/vanswers/

You can RSS-subscribe to the blog or follow Elliot on Twitter at @elliottvmw.

Welcome Elliot!

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Finding vAnswers blog

Someone asked me what the impact would be if a VM is installed with the wrong OS type.

My first thought was that this probably would introduce some performance issues, but then it hit me that this would cause the incorrect VMware Tools to get installed in the VM, leading to all sorts of unintended behaviors. Even worse, if the correct MCA/MCE architecture is not presented to the guest during boot I don’t think it will start at all. We use guest OS type to get this info (it only matters during boot as far as I know).

How to fix it:

1. Power off the VM.
2. Modify via GUI option General of the properties of your VM.
3. Power on the VM.
4. Reinstall the correct VMware Tools.

Anybody know of any more gotchas associated with having the wrong OS type specified for your VM?

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Impact of wrong OS type for VMs

If you are new to VMware’s products, there’s a good chance that VMware Workstation will be the first product you use of theirs/ours (disclosure: I work for VMware). It was the first product I used before I came to work there.

I see today that VMware is offering a free online course to learn the ins and outs of VMware Workstation 7. Quoting their website:

With the tremendous number of new Workstation 7 customers, I am very excited to announce the availability of a free introductory, self-paced online course.  The course is designed for people who are new VMware Workstation and it will quickly walk you through the steps for installing VMware Workstation, creating virtual machines, installing tools, configuring networks, and much more.  To access the course, you will be prompted to create a VMware myLearn account if you do not already have one.

Click this link to get started!

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Free VMware Workstation Course

The new Knowledgebase blog has just posted a table of brand new (or recently updated) timekeeping articles for VMware products.  A nice one-stop shop for all the time related KB articles. Worth a visit.

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All about Time in VMware

Today’s the day folks! VMware has released VMware Workstation 6, the sixth generation of its desktop virtualization software product. You can download the datasheet for more information or get an evaluation copy here. This is the version which allows users to record the execution of a virtual machine, including all inputs, outputs and decisions made along the way. On demand, the user can go “back in time” to the start of the recording and replay execution, guaranteeing that the virtual machine will perform exactly the same operations every time and ensuring bugs can be reproduced and resolved. I spoke more about this here.

Here’s what James Michels, head of technology at Bluefin Trading, a private trading firm specializing in equities, debt, option and derivatives trading had to say about Workstation 6-

“I am a developer who works primarily with Windows Vista x64, so VMware Workstation’s 64-bit support is very useful to me. Before I release my code, I regularly use VMware Workstation to try the application out on 32-bit Windows Vista as well as 32-bit Windows XP. Additionally, I have fresh installs to test out applications against. And, I can do all of this on a single desktop. Once you use VMware Workstation, you can’t imagine life without it.”

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VMware Workstation 6 Download

VMware has just added a feature to its Workstation product that will forever change the way software companies fix bugs in their products. Called “VM Record/Replay”, developers can now replay the execution of software captured in a Virtual Machine. Having worked in Tech. Support for more than 12 years I can tell you the worst kind of bug report we ever see is the non-reproducible bug. You know, your customer can make it happen, but you cannot, no matter how hard you try. It frustrates everyone, eats up enormous amounts of time and resources and does nothing to improve the product.

VMware Workstation 6 now includes the ability to capture complete execution behavior. As you all know, the complete execution path of the software can be very different from one execution of software to the next. Add multi-threaded programs into the mix and you have a situation where no two executions of software are ever exactly the same. Here’s a short description taken from The Amazing VM Record/Replay Feature in VMware Workstation 6-

“When you enable the Record/Replay feature, VMware Workstation immediately takes a snapshot of the full VM state, continues guest software execution, and begins tracking its execution behavior. We’re not talking about a movie of what’s on the screen, but the full system behavior including all CPU and device activity. It notes the exact point in time when every device interrupt or other asynchronous event occurs and records this information to a compressed log file until you tell it to stop. It actually has to save a few other things such as the contents of all incoming networking packets, too.”

This is break-through stuff for technical support people and software developers. Bravo!

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VMware Record and Play

Chris Pirillo says he just went back to Windows XP from Vista. For Chris, Vista just had too little support for his current USB hardware and he missed the way XP just worked. His suggestion?

VMware.

I quote-

“So, why recommend VMWare’s software over Microsoft’s own Virtual PC? That answer is exceedingly simple: VMWare is an amazingly robust virtualization tool – and it’s the only one that supports USB 2.0 device passthroughs. Virtual USB device support *ALONE* is makes it possible to run your XP-happy hardware on Windows Vista. Virtual PC is an inferior product by comparison – no arguments, my friends.”

That’s an awesome endorsement from a guy who is more Microsoft friendly than most other outspoken tech bloggers/podcasters.

I too have just had it with Vista and tossed it out. I bought a brand new laptop last weekend from my local big box electronic chain which had Vista preloaded on it. Sure looked nice and shiny in the store. Got it home and much to my dismay a lot of my software had issues with Vista, not to mention I couldn’t run my copy of VMware Workstation on it. Arrrgh!!

Now, me is smart, so I thought I’d be able to load up my old XP cd into it and load my trusty old XP operating system; as Chris said, it just works. Well, the XP boot cd could not sense any hard drives in this laptop. Probably a SATA drive thing, but I didn’t want any battles. Back to the store went this laptop, and back home I came with a discontinued model with XP on it. Thank-goodness. Just got it by the skin of my teeth as they were selling out fast.

People are going to be really unhappy with Vista I think. The short time I played with it I found it a real pain in the butt to use. I’m going to be much happier running XP and of course my VMware guest operating sytems!

And I can’t wait for VMware Workstation 6!

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There’s Help for Windows Vista