Run Home windows, Linux and BSD digital machines on a Home windows or Linux desktop with VMware Workstation Professional 2025.
Construct, check and demo software program throughout an array of various gadgets, platforms and clouds. IT professionals, builders and companies depend on Workstation Professional day-after-day to assist their initiatives and prospects. Workstation Professional makes it simple to run complicated native digital environments to simulate working methods, platforms and clouds, all from the identical desktop PC.
What are the completely different editions of VMware Workstation?
The VMware Workstation product line consists of two merchandise: Workstation Professional and Workstation Participant. Collectively they’re known as ‘VMware Workstation,’ and when there are variations, they’re referred to as out.
What are the variations between Workstation Professional and Workstation Participant?
Workstation Professional and Workstation Participant share the identical hypervisor expertise, however with distinctive consumer interfaces for various kinds of use.
Workstation Participant is designed for a single graphical VM operation, or for command line operation with ‘vmrun’ or ‘ for working a unique working system in a safe remoted sandbox on a PC.
Workstation Professional is designed for IT professionals and builders, offering a extra absolutely featured interface with capabilities for working a number of digital machines on the similar time. Workstation Professional can present and configure digital networking, create clones, connect with vSphere, present a number of VMs on the similar time in a tabbed UI and extra.
Do I must twin boot or repartition the disk?
No, VMware Workstation makes use of your pc’s file system and creates information that map to a digital machine’s disk drives, so there isn’t any must create a partition for every working system. If you have already got one other OS with twin boot put in in your pc, you should utilize VMware Workstation to run the opposite OS in a digital machine in your host working system.
As an alternative of twin booting, you may run each working methods concurrently and seamlessly change from one working system to a different with a click on of your mouse.
Options
Run VMs and Containers on a Single PC
Deploy native OCI containers and Kubernetes clusters with VM isolation, digital networking and digital useful resource choices via the brand new vctl CLI software.
Develop and Take a look at for Any Platform
Repair extra bugs and ship high quality code on time utilizing Workstation Professional in improvement and testing. Virtualize almost any x86 working system accessible right this moment on a desktop PC.
Get pleasure from Baked-In vSphere and ESXi Assist
Run ESXi and vCenter as digital machines on the desktop, and connect with a distant vSphere surroundings for fast VM entry and primary administration duties.
Run Safe and Remoted Desktops
Run a safe second desktop with completely different privateness settings, instruments and networking configurations for on-line safety, or to take “snapshots” that may be restored later.
Increase the Energy of Your PC with Virtualization
Uncover the true energy and suppleness of your desktop or laptop computer pc with VMware Workstation. Cut back {hardware} prices by 50% or extra by working a number of working methods concurrently on a single PC. Automate and streamline duties to avoid wasting time and enhance productiveness. Be a part of the thousands and thousands worldwide who use Workstation to:
- Host legacy purposes and overcome platform migration points
- Configure & check new software program or patches in an remoted surroundings
- Automate duties for software program improvement and testing
- Exhibit multi-tier configurations on a single PC
Use A number of Working Techniques Concurrently on the Identical PC
VMware Workstation makes it easy to create and run a number of digital machines in your desktop or laptop computer pc. You’ll be able to convert an current bodily PC right into a VMware digital machine, or create a brand new digital machine from scratch. Every digital machine represents a whole PC, together with the processor, reminiscence, community connections and peripheral ports.
VMware Workstation helps you to use your digital machines to run Home windows, Linux and a bunch of different working methods side-by-side on the identical pc. You’ll be able to change between working methods immediately with a click on of a mouse, share information between digital machines with drag-and-drop performance and entry all of the peripheral gadgets you depend on.
Take Snapshots & Movies of your Digital Machines
With Workstation, you may take a “snapshot” that preserves the state of a digital machine so you may return to it at any time. Snapshots are helpful when you could revert your digital machine to a previous, secure system state. Workstation shows thumbnails of all of your snapshots on a single display screen, making it simple so that you can observe and revert to a beforehand saved snapshot.
You’ll be able to even use Workstation 6 to report and play video information that seize all adjustments to a digital machine over a time period. This perform is unique to VMware Workstation and is extremely helpful for software program debugging, Assist Desk forensics, gross sales demonstrations and coaching.
Run an Complete Multi-tier System on a Single Host Pc
Run multi-tier enterprise purposes on a single piece of {hardware} by managing network-connected digital machines with the Groups function of Workstation 6. Groups allow you to create digital community environments that embody shopper, server and database digital machines.
With Workstation Groups, you may flip a complete multi-tier surroundings on and off with a single click on of the mouse button. Workstation shows stay thumbnails of all related digital machines, enabling you to simply establish and change between the digital machines related to a workforce.
Clone your Digital Machines to Speed up Deployment
Putting in working methods and purposes could be time consuming. With clones, you can also make many copies of a digital machine from a single set up and configuration course of. This functionality makes it quick and easy to distribute standardized computing environments to workers and college students, or to create a baseline configuration for testing.
Take Your Digital Machines With You
New to Workstation is the power to create and deploy safe digital machines (referred to as ACEs) with the ACE Choice Pack. Mobility is likely one of the main advantages of this selection pack, because it allows customers to securely take their desktops with them on transportable media gadgets resembling USB thumb drives.
What’s New
The 17.6.3 launch resolves CVE-2025-22224 and CVE-2025-22226. For extra data on these vulnerabilities and their influence on Broadcom merchandise, see VMSA-2025-0004.
- VMware Workstation Professional not requires a license key and is now free for industrial, instructional, and private use.
- VMware Workstation Professional 17.6.3 offers numerous bug fixes requested by prospects.
- We’re thrilled to announce a big change that displays our dedication to creating VMware Fusion and VMware Workstation extra accessible than ever. Beginning November 11, 2024, these highly effective desktop hypervisor merchandise might be accessible without spending a dime to everybody – industrial, instructional, and private customers alike.
Recognized Points
- The multi-monitor function may not work appropriately in particular topologies
- In particular conditions, based mostly on completely different {hardware} and topologies, the multi-monitor function doesn’t work as anticipated. You would possibly see points like reverting the topology to a single display screen, or not biking via displays.
Workaround:
Resolved Points
- When booting a digital machine, VMware Workstation Professional would possibly crash
- When booting a digital machine, VMware Workstation Professional would possibly crash on some methods. The difficulty is resolved in VMware Workstation Professional 17.6.3.
- VMware Workstation Professional set up fails on Centos 9 Stream with kernel variations above 5.14.0-432
- If you happen to attempt putting in VMware Workstation Professional on Centos 9 Stream hosts with kernel variations above 5.14.0-432, you obtain a compilation error. The difficulty is resolved in VMware Workstation Professional 17.6.3.
- Digital machines on Home windows 11 hosts turn into unresponsive after unlocking the host
- After locking or unlocking the host with a digital machine put in on a Home windows 11 host, the digital machine turns into unresponsive. The difficulty is resolved in VMware Workstation 17.6.3.
Introducing vmcli
vmcli is a command-line software included with VMware Workstation Professional, enabling customers to work together with the hypervisor immediately from a Linux or macOS terminal, or the Home windows command immediate. With vmcli, you may carry out a wide range of operations resembling creating new digital machines, producing VM templates, powering on VMs, and modifying numerous VM settings. Moreover, you too can create scripts to run a number of instructions sequentially. For extra data, see Utilizing VMware Workstation Professional.
New Visitor Working System Assist
- Home windows Server 2025
- Home windows 11 Model 23H2
- Ubuntu 24.04
- Fedora 40
New Host Working System Assist
- Home windows Server 2025
- Home windows 11 Model 23H2
- Ubuntu 24.04
- Fedora 40
Resolved Points
- VMware KVM crashes whereas working the ‘vmware-kvm –preferences’ command
- VMware KVM crashes if you attempt to open its Preferences dialog by utilizing the ‘vmware-kvm –preferences’ command. This difficulty is resolved.
- Digital machines run unusually slowly on Home windows hosts
- Operating digital machines on Home windows hosts as a non-administrator consumer would possibly lead to excessive host CPU utilization and poor visitor efficiency. This difficulty is resolved.
- Workstation set up fails on Linux hosts with a compilation error
- If you happen to attempt to set up Workstation on Linux hosts with kernel model 6.8, you obtain a compilation error. For particulars, see https://data.broadcom.com/exterior/article?legacyId=80807. This difficulty is resolved.
Safety Points
- OpenSSL has been up to date to three.0.14
- Expat has been up to date to 2.6.2
- 7zip has been up to date to 23.01
Recognized Points
- CentOS 9 Stream with kernel variations later than 5.14.0-432 is just not supported on Workstation Professional 17.6 as a bunch
- Workaround: None
- Inline product improve from variations sooner than 17.6 is not going to be automated for Workstation Professional on Home windows Host
- Because of the migration from VMware providers to Broadcom, Workstation Professional can’t robotically apply this improve.
- Workaround: Consult with the KB368734 article for downloading and putting in Workstation Professional from the Broadcom assist portal.
- The multi-monitor function may not work appropriately in particular topologies
- In particular conditions, based mostly on completely different {hardware} and topologies, the multi-monitor function doesn’t work as anticipated. You would possibly see points like reverting the topology to a single display screen, or not biking via displays.
- Workaround: None.
