VMware just releases a minor upgrade for its most famous product: VMware Workstation.
Ok, I’m joking: this is a minor release only for release number. But it’s a really big improvement in virtualization technologies.
Here the changes:
– VMware Virtual Disk Manager
You can create, manage and modify virtual disk files from the command line or within scripts with the VMware Virtual Disk Manager utility. For more information, see Using VMware Virtual Disk Manager.
– Experimental support for 64-bit host computers
This means you can install this release of VMware Workstation on a 64-bit host computer that uses an AMD64 Opteron, Athlon 64 or Intel IA-32e CPU. Virtual machines you create on these hosts have 32-bit CPUs and can run 32-bit guest operating systems.
– Experimental support for Solaris guest operating systems
This means you may install the x86 platform edition of Solaris 9 and of Solaris 10 beta as guest operating systems in this release of VMware Workstation. VMware Tools is not available for Solaris. If you want to run the guest operating system’s X server, you may do so in 16 colors.
– Experimental support for SUSE LINUX 9.1 guests
This means you may run SUSE LINUX 9.1 as a guest operating system in this release of VMware Workstation.
– Enhanced VPN support over NAT
VMware Workstation now supports PPTP over NAT.
Solaris users come back to the family! (and please, please: someone develop a new unofficial VMware Tools for Solaris 10…)
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Update: I just tried a Windows Server 2003 GuestOS inside new Workstation 4.5.2. It seems much faster than before. Even faster than a real machine. Comment this post and tell me if I’m the only one having this impression.