VMware Player

VMware Player is a free for personal use piece of software that can be used by anyone to run (or playback) virtual machines that were initially created with the Oracle Virtualbox or VMware Workstation applications and exported as appliances.

Features at a glance

The application has been designed from the ground up to allow users to quickly and easily take advantage of the security, flexibility, and portability of virtual machines. It can run any virtual machine, can revert a virtual machine to its previous state, as well as to access host PC devices.

Among other features, we can mention the ability to copy, paste, drag & drop, shared folders, configure networking options, support guest operating systems, adjustable memory, and configurable shutdown.

Additionally, it can also run restricted virtual machines that were created with the VMware Workstation or VMware Fusion Professional applications. It supports up to 16 virtual processors, up to 64GB of memory per virtual machine, and 8TB virtual disks.

Availability, usage and supported platforms

Supported operating systems include GNU/Linux and Microsoft Windows. On Linux, the project is distributed as two binary files, one for each of the supported hardware platforms (64-bit and 32-bit).

Each binary file includes the VMware Player and VMware Player Plus components. By default, users will be able to only use the first one, as the latter requires them to enter a license key.

Once the binary file has been downloaded, and the linux-headers (for module compilation) and gtkmm (for the graphical user interface) packages installed, you can start the installation from a terminal window using the chmod +x VMware-edition-version.release.architecture.bundle and ./VMware-edition-version.release.architecture.bundle commands (where version.release is the current version number of the product).

Bottom line

Summing up, VMware Player is a neat application that provides users with the best way possible to deliver managed desktops, run restricted virtual machines, recycle old hardware, and run Windows XP forever!

What is new in this release:

• Security:
• Updated VMware Workstation 14 Player Version 14.1.3 to use OpenSSL library version openssl-1.0.2o.
• Addressed critical security issues as outlined in KB 55636

What is new in version 14.1.2:

• Windows 10 2018 Spring Creators Update (Version 1803) as host and guest
• Ubuntu 18.04 support as host and guest

What is new in version :

• This release of VMware Player is a free upgrade for all VMware Player 12 users. This release includes some bug fixes and security updates.

What is new in version 7.1.2:

• Using audio conferencing software on a Windows 8 guest operating system caused a severe echo during both video and audio calls
• When you used audio conferencing software on a Windows 8 guest, participants using the built in speaker, as opposed to headphones, received a severe echo during both video and audio calls.
• Could not access Help from Virtual Machine Settings dialog box
• You could not access the Help system by clicking Help on the Virtual Machine Settings dialog box.

What is new in version 7.1.0:

• The following issues were resolved in VMware Player 7.1:
• A Linux guest OS booted on EFI firmware sometimes failed to respond to the keyboard and mouse if any mouse motion occurred during a short window of time during OS boot. This issue has been resolved.
• You could not compact or defragment a persistent disk. This issue has been resolved.
• The UI sometimes crashed when a user copied and pasted a file between two Windows guests. This issue has been resolved.
• Rendering corruption in UI elements in Fedora 20 guests with 3D enabled has been resolved.
• The following issues might occur in VMware Player 7.1:
• Using certain Microsoft Office 2013 applications in a Windows 7 or later guest operating system can cause the guest to crash or the Workstation UI to become unresponsive
• For example, if you use Outlook 2013 to compose and read email, after a while, the guest might crash, or after you use Word 2013 for a while, the Workstation UI might stop responding.
• Workaround: Turn off the 3D acceleration feature. From the menu bar, select VM > Settings > Display, and deselect Accelerate 3D Graphics.
• Using a USB headset with a Windows 8 or later guest operating system does not work
• Because most USB headsets expect a USB 2.0 controller, whereas Windows 8 and later guest operating systems use a USB 3.0 controller by default, you cannot use USB headsets with Windows 8 or later guests.
• Workaround: Change the USB controller of the guest from USB 3.0 to USB 2.0.
• Using the Easy Install feature with a virtual machine that uses EFI fails if the disk size is larger than 2TB
• If you attempt to select a hard disk larger than 2TB, the following error message appears: The specified virtual disk size is incompatible with Easy Install and may prevent the guest from booting properly. The disk must be smaller than 2 TB to use Easy Install.
• Workaround: Either choose a hard disk whose size is equal to or smaller than 2TB, or install the guest operating system manually.
• Cannot access Help from Virtual Machine Settings dialog box
• You cannot access the Help system by clicking Help on the Virtual Machine Settings dialog box.
• Workaround: Select Player > Help > Help Topics to access the help system and use the Search tab or Content tab to find the help topic.

What is new in version 7.0.0:

• New Operating System Support
• Support has been added for the following guest operating systems:
• Windows 8.1 Update
• Windows Server 2012 R2
• Windows 10 Technical Preview (Experimental support)
• Ubuntu 14.10
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
• CentOS 7
• OpenSUSE 13.2
• SUSE Linux Enterprise 12
• VMware Hardware Version 11
• Hardware versions introduce new virtual hardware functionality and new features while enabling VMware to run legacy operating systems in virtual machines.
• New features included in this hardware version:
• New CPU enablement, including Intel Haswell microarchitecture extension support.
• Workstation 11 is optimized to take advantage of new Haswell extensions, delivering up to 45% improvement in CPU-intensive operations like multimedia, encryption/decryption, and other strenuous performance tests.
• Updated xHCI controller
• Updated NDIS drive
• Allocate up to 2GB video memory to a virtual machine

What is new in version 6.0.4:

• Fixes memory issue in Workstation on Microsoft Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012.

What is new in version 6.0.3:

• VMware Player 6.0.3 has been updated to the OPENSSL library version openssl-0.9.8za where necessary to address CVE-2014-0224 , CVE-2014-0198, CVE-2010-5298, and CVE-2014-3470.

What is new in version 6.0.2:

• KVM mode has been added to VMware Player.
• Improved compatibility and audio performance with certain USB audio and video devices.
• The VMware Tools can be properly updated when upgrading VMware Player to a newer version.
• The VMware Player UI now displays correctly when powering on an old hardware version.

What is new in version 6.0.1:

• Download All Components Now button not working.
• When you navigate to Player > File > Player Preferences and click the Download All Components Now button, the button does not work as intended.
• Workaround: Update your installation of Player by selecting Check for software components as needed in the Player Preferences dialog.
• Workstation or Player on Windows freezes if another application is frozen.
• What's going on: Workstation or Player incorrectly attempts to communicate with the frozen application and is stuck waiting for it to respond.
• Virtual machine hangs while powering off
• Rarely, virtual machines will cease functioning (hang) while powering off, particularly if the guest OS was in the middle of a BSOD or kernel panic.
• Workaround: If the virtual machine hangs while powering off, you may have to terminate the vmx process manually. Updating to Workstation 10.0.1 should resolve the issue.
• Easy Install does not recognize RTM builds of Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 disc
• In the new virtual machine wizard, when you select a disc or ISO of the RTM build of Windows 8.1 or Windows Server 2012 R2, the image is not recognized. Easy Install does not work with the RTM builds of those operating systems.
• Workaround: When creating a new virtual machine, you must choose I will install the operating system later and manually install the guest operating systems from disc. An update to Fusion 6.0.1 or Fusion 6.0.2 resolves this issue.