Now VMware Workstation Pro is free for personal or commercial or any other use. I hope that they continue the development of this software. Also if you have Core Isolation, Hyper-V, WSL, Windows Hypervisor Platform, Virtual Machine Platform, and generally whatever uses a part of Hyper-V, then VMware Workstation virtual machine go bananas and become slow (even if you disable side channel mitigations). Especially, older Guest OS like Windows 2000, XP become very slow. The solution is to disable what I mentioned above (and anything else that uses Hyper-V). Also in VMware 17.6 (and 17.6.1, 17.6.2), the Linux VM's could have a black screen if you have 3D acceleration enabled and an NVIDIA gpu/drivers in you PC.
I installed VMware Workstation Pro 17 for free for the first time ever using a virtual machine running win-11 and did it after watching a YT video on how to do it and it works great
Thanks for the video. I have been using virtualbox for Linux for a while, apart from some issues with usb devices, not had to many issues. Because everyone says VMware is better, I decided to give it a go a few weeks ago. Something I found unclear was the cores and processors apart from they don’t apparently refer directly to the CPU. I have also found more crashes, virtual machines disappearing and also as separate issue problems with display in VM due to it not liking how I configured graphics . Hopefully when I have used it as much I will like it as much or more than virtualbo. Maybe the biggest issue I have with it is the way it is hidden and convoluted download process. Almost having to whisper a password to man in a trench coat in some Eastern European country in the 1950s on a dark and stormy night.
It certainly is good for VMware to have released VMware Workstation Pro free for personal use. Pro is a great improvement from VMware Workstation Player that I used to run earlier. Player is also capable to create virtual machines, but Pro has a lot of more features to apply, eg. snapshots are essential in testing jobs.
Personally, I prefer VirtualBox for a VM software to play around with operating systems and non-production use cases, but VMWare I would definitely use for actual production use cases if I am on a Windows or Mac system. I would use QEMU/KVM for production stuff most likely on Linux.
Windows Sandbox is not that bad either for light, if not minimalistic, one time only testing environment. It's secure way to try out some software that you might fear malicious. System can't be saved. Shut it down and all is gone. It only gives you 4GB of RAM (?), but sees all your CPU cores.
An interesting question I got asked: If one creates a VM using a pirated version of Windows, how difficult would it be to prove that it is communicating with websites that it should not? I wish this is easy so that people stop using pirated Windows. It's the worst thing in terms of security...
VMware is indeed a great hypervisor software. However, I find that it is helpful if you have plenty of memory and you are running it from a M.2 SSD drive and the virtual machines should also be placed on a SSD preferably. I found hard drives way too slow to run those virtual machines at a reasonable speed.
VMware shows your virtual machine(s) on the left hand side of GUI. Pick the VM, right click menu and select delete. You are also prompted to delete the VM files entirely from fisk, or just the object from view. This is only one method.
In my personal opinion, VMware Professional outperforms VirtualBox. Take Linux Debian 12 installed on VM and VB respectively for example. My Debian 12 runs so smoothly on VM as if it were my host system while that same Linux distro often stutters on VB. in the meanwhile, the audio output of Debian 12 by default on VM is as normal as that on y host system. However, it sounds horrible on VB. If you change the audio hardware settings on VB, the system will simply go mute.
hi off subject are you aware of pc freeze on asus tuf a17.i turn off back on its fine again…no ovht ryzen 7 16gb ddr4 3200mhz….only 8 months old..poss ram prob ?
You can install VM Ware on anything that has hardware to run the software. I believe Windows 11 in VM running on unsupported hardware would likely need to be installed using the work around for W11 on unsupported machines. I may be wrong.
@ yes that my concern if you have a pc that is unsupported for windows 11 then the workstation will not work for me ,.Brain said yes but I am not sure.I just have to give it a try this week to see if it does or does not work.. I have tried to installing win 11 on 3 of machines and unfortunately win 11 just wont install,I have tried different methods unless I am do something wrong when installing win 11 ,I give it another try and see what happens
Yeah its a bit of a faff or was during the transition period from the VM ware site to the new one this was a fewmonths back and i have paused the video to comment before watching
TERRIFIC app list...thanks! a future vid idea...my dilemma is the opposite, sigh.... HOW to run a Window App* on a Linux Distro!!??? My planwork doesn't need all the MS-fuss :-) * ActCAD
Thanks for the video. I have been using virtualbox for Linux for a while, apart from some issues with usb devices, not had to many issues. Because everyone says VMware is better, I decided to give it a go a few weeks ago. Something I found unclear was the cores and processors apart from they don’t apparently refer directly to the CPU. I have also found more crashes, virtual machines disappearing and also as separate issue problems with display in VM due to it not liking how I configured graphics . Hopefully when I have used it as much I will like it as much or more than virtualbo. Maybe the biggest issue I have with it is the way it is hidden and convoluted download process. Almost having to whisper a password to man in a trench coat in some Eastern European country in the 1950s on a dark and stormy night.
I used to use Virtual box, can't remember why I stopped, but been feeling the need again and this seems far easier than I remember!
Now VMware Workstation Pro is free for personal or commercial or any other use. I hope that they continue the development of this software. Also if you have Core Isolation, Hyper-V, WSL, Windows Hypervisor Platform, Virtual Machine Platform, and generally whatever uses a part of Hyper-V, then VMware Workstation virtual machine go bananas and become slow (even if you disable side channel mitigations). Especially, older Guest OS like Windows 2000, XP become very slow. The solution is to disable what I mentioned above (and anything else that uses Hyper-V). Also in VMware 17.6 (and 17.6.1, 17.6.2), the Linux VM's could have a black screen if you have 3D acceleration enabled and an NVIDIA gpu/drivers in you PC.
I installed VMware Workstation Pro 17 for free for the first time ever using a virtual machine running win-11 and did it after watching a YT video on how to do it and it works great
Except, you have to have a Broadcom account to download the free version. Ben obviously has one because he uses VMware as a computer professional
excellent video --- thank you Brian!!
Glad you enjoyed it
Good info, thanks Brian. 👍
Any time!
Thanks for the video. I have been using virtualbox for Linux for a while, apart from some issues with usb devices, not had to many issues. Because everyone says VMware is better, I decided to give it a go a few weeks ago. Something I found unclear was the cores and processors apart from they don’t apparently refer directly to the CPU. I have also found more crashes, virtual machines disappearing and also as separate issue problems with display in VM due to it not liking how I configured graphics . Hopefully when I have used it as much I will like it as much or more than virtualbo. Maybe the biggest issue I have with it is the way it is hidden and convoluted download process. Almost having to whisper a password to man in a trench coat in some Eastern European country in the 1950s on a dark and stormy night.
It certainly is good for VMware to have released VMware Workstation Pro free for personal use. Pro is a great improvement from VMware Workstation Player that I used to run earlier. Player is also capable to create virtual machines, but Pro has a lot of more features to apply, eg. snapshots are essential in testing jobs.
Thanks for the vid from Cape Town.
Welcome
Brilliant video, I was looking for something like this that is simple and easy to use software.
Welcome
Personally, I prefer VirtualBox for a VM software to play around with operating systems and non-production use cases, but VMWare I would definitely use for actual production use cases if I am on a Windows or Mac system. I would use QEMU/KVM for production stuff most likely on Linux.
I used to use VirtualBox years ago
Thank you.
You're welcome!
I cant seem to download this, cos its asking me to sign in. Any help?
www.techspot.com/downloads/189-vmware-workstation-for-windows.html
How to see realtime connection speed in windows? Can you recommend any software for that?
Windows Sandbox is not that bad either for light, if not minimalistic, one time only testing environment. It's secure way to try out some software that you might fear malicious. System can't be saved. Shut it down and all is gone.
It only gives you 4GB of RAM (?), but sees all your CPU cores.
Imagine those who paid for this just before it became free
a lot
No product is free ,if something is free then You are the Product 😂😂😂
An interesting question I got asked: If one creates a VM using a pirated version of Windows, how difficult would it be to prove that it is communicating with websites that it should not? I wish this is easy so that people stop using pirated Windows. It's the worst thing in terms of security...
It's a lot easier to use than VirtualBox. Using Fedora 41 on VM.
Oh my goodness! Why are they giving this away for free? It's like giving away the kitchen sink!
VMware is indeed a great hypervisor software. However, I find that it is helpful if you have plenty of memory and you are running it from a M.2 SSD drive and the virtual machines should also be placed on a SSD preferably. I found hard drives way too slow to run those virtual machines at a reasonable speed.
If you install Linux iso in the vm and then decide you don't like it, how do you remove it?
Any O/S that you install inside a VM can just be deleted there is an option to do that.
VMware shows your virtual machine(s) on the left hand side of GUI. Pick the VM, right click menu and select delete. You are also prompted to delete the VM files entirely from fisk, or just the object from view.
This is only one method.
In my personal opinion, VMware Professional outperforms VirtualBox. Take Linux Debian 12 installed on VM and VB respectively for example. My Debian 12 runs so smoothly on VM as if it were my host system while that same Linux distro often stutters on VB. in the meanwhile, the audio output of Debian 12 by default on VM is as normal as that on y host system. However, it sounds horrible on VB. If you change the audio hardware settings on VB, the system will simply go mute.
VMware Professional is a industry standard
Good old Torre de Belém
Wrong, it is also free for commercial use too for a while now.
Just going by what's on the company page, free for personal use
Isn't hypervisor quicker?
can a linux distro be moved from the VM to be the direct (boot) OS?
Will it run Windows98?
hi off subject are you aware of pc freeze on asus tuf a17.i turn off back on its fine again…no ovht ryzen 7 16gb ddr4 3200mhz….only 8 months old..poss ram prob ?
Brain can I install Vmware on a pc that is unsupported for windows 11 but want to test windows 11?
You can install VM Ware on anything that has hardware to run the software.
I believe Windows 11 in VM running on unsupported hardware would likely need to be installed using the work around for W11 on unsupported machines.
I may be wrong.
Yes
@ yes that my concern if you have a pc that is unsupported for windows 11 then the workstation will not work for me ,.Brain said yes but I am not sure.I just have to give it a try this week to see if it does or does not work..
I have tried to installing win 11 on 3 of machines and unfortunately win 11 just wont install,I have tried different methods unless I am do something wrong when installing win 11 ,I give it another try and see what happens
Yeah its a bit of a faff or was during the transition period from the VM ware site to the new one this was a fewmonths back and i have paused the video to comment before watching
Video on GPU pass through for free 🙂🙏🏻
👍👍
TERRIFIC app list...thanks! a future vid idea...my dilemma is the opposite, sigh.... HOW to run a Window App* on a Linux Distro!!??? My planwork doesn't need all the MS-fuss :-) * ActCAD
Thanks for the video. I have been using virtualbox for Linux for a while, apart from some issues with usb devices, not had to many issues. Because everyone says VMware is better, I decided to give it a go a few weeks ago. Something I found unclear was the cores and processors apart from they don’t apparently refer directly to the CPU. I have also found more crashes, virtual machines disappearing and also as separate issue problems with display in VM due to it not liking how I configured graphics . Hopefully when I have used it as much I will like it as much or more than virtualbo. Maybe the biggest issue I have with it is the way it is hidden and convoluted download process. Almost having to whisper a password to man in a trench coat in some Eastern European country in the 1950s on a dark and stormy night.