Try out these features


The VMware Workstation 7.1 Beta includes several new features and hundreds of minor improvements. Some release highlights include:

* OpenGL 2.1 support for Windows 7 and Vista guests: The addition of hardware accelerated OpenGL 2.1 support to the WDDM driver enables many more graphics applications to run inside of your virtual machines.
* Improved graphics performance: Significant enhancements have been made to the VMware WDDM driver that have produced benchmark results that are up to 80% faster. The updated driver also produces smoother video playback and addresses many reported rendering issues. Of course games run better as well!
* 8-way SMP support plus virtual disks up to 2TB in size: The virtual hardware continues to become more powerful to meet the needs of Workstation customers who are running server class applications.
* OVF 1.0 support: Including the OVF Tool with this release enables users to easily import or export virtual machines and vApps and move them to vSphere or up into the cloud.
* Direct Launch: Blur the distinction between running native and virtual applications by launching an application installed in a virtual machine directly from the start menu or taskbar of the host system.
* Automatic software updates: These VMware applications can now detect when a new version is released and are able to update at the click of a button.
* Fedora 12 virtual machines: We are excited about finally offering support for running one of the most popular Linux distributions on the planet!



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The VMware Workstation Team is excited to invite you to participate in the Workstation 7.1, Player 3.1 and ACE 2.7 Beta program.

VMware truly values the participation of our user community in the product development process. VMware Workstation wouldn´t be the industry leader without your enthusiasm and support.

To download the beta software and for more information about the new features visit http://communities.vmware.com/community/beta/ws.

Release highlights include:

- OpenGL 2.1 for Windows 7 and Vista guests
- Overall graphics performance improvements
- 8-way SMP
- 2TB virtual disks
- OVF 1.0 support
- Icons to launch applications in Unity
- Automatic software updates
- Fedora 12 guest support

Links to the ACE and Player Beta programs can be found on the right-hand side of the Workstation Beta page.

The VMware Workstation Team relies on your participation to ensure that our products continue to exceed the expectations of our customers.
Please submit any bugs, comments, suggestions or questions to the Beta Community site http://communities.vmware.com/community/beta/ws?view=discussions.

If you have any problems accessing the beta community website or the download, please email wsbeta@vmware.com.


We look forward to hearing from you!

The VMware Workstation Team


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VMware Workstation 7.1, VMware Player 3.1, and VMware ACE 2.7 Beta Release Notes

Workstation Version 7.1 | 12 MAR 2010 | Build 240242

Last Document Update: 12 MAR 2010

Check frequently for additions and updates to these release notes.
These release notes cover the following topics:

* What´s New
* Product Feedback
* Known Issues

What´s New

With this release of VMware Workstation, VMware Player, and VMware ACE the following new features and operating systems have been added:

* New Support for 32-Bit and 64-Bit Operating Systems
* New Features in VMware Workstation and VMware Player

New Support for 32-Bit and 64-Bit Operating Systems

This Beta release allows you to use the following host and guest operating systems in addition to those operating systems already supported:

Operating System

Host and Guest Support
Ubuntu 8.04.4 Host and guest
Ubuntu 10.04 Host and guest
OpenSUSE 11.2 Host and guest
Fedora 12 Guest
Debian 5.0.4 Guest
Mandriva 2009.1 Guest

New Features in VMware Workstation and VMware Player

To provide feedback on the new features of the VMware Workstation 7.1 and VMware Player 3.1 Beta, go to the Beta Community site. For more information on how to provide feedback, see Product Feedback.

* OpenGL 2.1 support for Windows 7 and Vista guests — Improves the ability to run graphics-based applications in virtual machines.
* Improved Graphics Performance — Enhanced performance with better benchmarks, frame rates, and improved rendering on Windows 7 and Vista guests allows you to run various graphics-based applications. In addition, major improvements in video playback enable you to play high-resolution videos in virtual machines.
* Automatic Software Updates — Download and install VMware Tools, new, and maintenance releases updates when available.
* Autologon — Save your login credentials and bypass the login dialog box when you power on a Windows guest. Use this feature if you restart the guest frequently and want to avoid entering your login credentials. You can enable Autologon when you open guest applications from the host.
* OVF 1.0 Support — Import or export virtual machines and vApps to upload them to VMware vSphere or VMware Cloud. The VMware OVF tool is a command-line utility bundled in the VMware Workstation installer. Use this tool along with VMware Workstation to convert VMware .vmx files to .ovf format or vice versa. VMware recommends that you use the OVF command-line utility. For more information, see the OVF Tool User Guide.
* Eight-Way SMP Support — Create and run virtual machines with a total of up to eight-processor cores.
* 2TB Virtual Disk Support — Maximum virtual disks and raw disks size increased from 950MB to 2TB.
* Direct Launch — Drag guest applications from the Unity start menu directly onto the host desktop. Double-click the shortcut to open the guest application. The shortcut remains on the desktop after you exit Unity and close VMware Workstation or VMware Player.
* User Experience Improvement Program — Help VMware improve future versions of the product by participating in the User Experience Improvement Program. Participation in the program is voluntary and you can opt out at any time. When you participate in the User Experience Improvement Program, your computer sends anonymous information to VMware, which may include product configuration, virtual machine configuration, usage and performance data, and information about your host system specifications and configuration.

The User Experience Improvement Program does not collect any personal data, such as your name, address, telephone number, or email address that can be used to identify or contact you. No user identifiable data such as the product license key or MAC address are sent to VMware. VMware does not store your IP address with the data that is collected.

For more information about the User Experience Improvement Program, click the Learn More link during installation or from the Workstation Preferences menu.

Product Feedback

Your comments, suggestions, and questions are crucial in this stage of the program and are greatly appreciated. Go to the Beta Community site to provide your feedback by starting a new discussion or replying to an existing thread.

Post any rendering or performance issues caused by the WDDM driver or propose suggestions and use cases to test the eight-way SMP implementation in the VMware Workstation Beta Community forum.
Known Issues for VMware Workstation, VMware Player, and VMware ACE

The known issues for VMware Workstation, VMware Player, and VMware ACE are grouped by topic in the following sections.

Installation, Upgrade, and Compatibility

* The WDDM graphics driver included in the Beta release is not compatible with previous releases of VMware Workstation. To run a virtual machine in an older version of VMware Workstation, revert to the previous version of the WDDM driver.
Workaround: Uninstall the Beta version of VMware Tools and install the previously released version.
* On Windows Server 2008 hosts, if you are not logged in as an Administrative user or your group policy disallows .msi installers, VMware Workstation, VMware Player, and VMware Tools update might fail.
* On Linux hosts, installing Eclipse C/C++ Remote Debugging plug-in while Eclipse is not running fails with an error message installation of the Eclipse C/C++ Remote Debugging Plugin failed. Check the log at /var/log/vmware-installer.
* Installing VMware Workstation in a directory path that contains non-ASCII characters might cause an unsuccessful installation or cause the guest application shortcut to become unresponsive when you try to open it.
Workaround: Install VMware Workstation in a directory path containing only ASCII characters.

Display

* Exiting FIFA 08 game on Windows 7 guests and hosts with Aero enabled, might cause the desktop wallpaper to turn black.
* There are known issues with the ATI Linux driver 10.2. VMware recommends that you use ATI Linux driver 9.11 for the best 3D user experience.

VMware Tools

* Installing VMware Tools on Ubuntu 10.4 guests and accessing VMware Workstation menu options in Unity mode might cause the mouse to be unresponsive.

Miscellaneous

* In some instances, the X server in an Ubuntu 9.10 guest might unexpectedly restart during the login process.
Workaround: Log in to the guest again.
* Converter does not support virtual disk size that exceeds 950GB.
Workaround: Change the disk size value to 950GB.
* Live debugging mode does not work on encrypted virtual machines.
* On Linux hosts, changes to the System proxy settings and Manual proxy setting take effect after you restart VMware Workstation or VMware Player.
* Powering off a virtual machine from the Power menu may cause the guest to discard changes recently made to the Autologon settings.
* Adding a shared folder that contains Windows executable files and using Explorer to drag and drop an .exe file to the guest might fail with an error and require restarting the virtual machine.
Workaround: Use a mapped drive to the shared folder containing the files and use the xcopy command-line utility to copy the files.
* After deleting several ACE instances at once from the ACE Management Server, there may be blank lines present at the bottom of the window. Attempting to interact with these blank lines may cause VMware Workstation to fail.
Workaround: To remove the blank lines, move the scroll bar to the right side of the window.
* Canceling a hot fix application might cause VMware ACE Player to fail.
* On Windows Server 2008 R2 host with Windows 7 32-bit guest, entering kiosk mode of an ACE instance might result in a blue screen.
* The ACE host access policy might not work on Windows hosts.