VMware Workstation 10 delivers best-in-class Windows 8 support, and innovative
new features that transform the way technical professionals work with virtual
machines, whether they reside on their PCs or on private enterprise clouds.
*New Operating System Support
Support has been added for:
-Windows 8.1
-Windows 8.1 Enterprise
-Windows Server 2012 R2
-Ubuntu 13.10
As well as for the latest Fedora, CentOS, Red Hat and OpenSUSE releases.
*VMware Hardware Version 10
This version of VMware Workstation includes VMware hardware Version 10 and is
compatible with vSphere 5.5. Hardware versions introduce new virtual hardware
functionality and new features while enabling VMware to run legacy operating
systems in our virtual machines. New features included in this hardware
version:
*16 vCPUs
Virtual machines can now run with up to 16 virtual CPUs. This enables very
processor intensive applications to be run in a virtual machine.
Note: Running virtual machines with 16 vCPUs requires that both your host
and guest operating system support 16 logical processors. Your physical
machine must have at least 8 cores with hyper-threading enabled to power
on a virtual machine with this configuration.
*8 Terabyte Disks
Virtual machines can now include virtual disks greater than 2 Terabytes.
Given the limitations of most operating systems to boot from disks greater
than 2 Terabytes, These large disks are most useful as secondary drives for
file storage.
Note: To use a disk greater than 2TB for a boot disk, your guest operating
system would need to boot using EFI in order to read a GPT formatted disk
which is required to access all of the sectors on a disk of this size.
Additionally, the Buslogic controller is not capable of supporting a disk
greater than 2TB.
Extra murphy78 note: To enable EFI boot mode, edit the .VMX file and add:
firmware = "efi"
Alternatively, to set it back to bios (legacy) boot, change to:
firmware = "bios"
*Virtual SATA Disk Controller
A SATA I/O controller can now be selected during the creation of a custom
virtual machine in addition to an IDE and SCSI controller. This enables use
of in-box SATA drivers that are shipped with operation systems.
*USB Improvements
USB 3 Streams have been implemented to enable high speed transfer of files
from USB 3 external storage devices that support this technology. For
customers running Workstation 10 on laptops with small hard disks, large
data files, video files etc., can be stored on an external USB 3 storage
device and accessed quickly from within the virtual machine.
VMware has also addressed issues Intel, NEC, AMD, TI and Linux Kernel host
xHCI drivers to improve overall USB 3 compatibility and performance.
*More VMnets
Due to demand, VMware has doubled the number of VMnets in Workstation 10
to twenty! This provides you with more virtual networks to dedicate to
specific uses, and it enables more complex networked virtual environments
to be built.
*SSD Pass-through
Windows 8 is capable of detecting when it is being run from a solid state
drive (SSD) and optimizes itself for this hardware. In Workstation 10, the
guest operating system will be able to detect when the virtual machine Disk
file is being stored on an SSD drive and the operating system can make the
same optimizations when it is running in a virtual machine.
Many additional changes have been made to this Hardware Version including
some performance improvements, power savings, and compatibility with new
processors. We have also made significant improvements in the startup time
of VMware Workstation and in Windows boot time when running Windows virtual
machines.
*Expiring Virtual Machines
VMware has enhanced the capabilities of Restricted Virtual Machines to
include the ability to expire a virtual machine on a specified date and
time. This feature enables our customers to create virtual machines to be
shared with employees, students, customers, contractors, etc. The
restricted virtual machine will run until their contract terminates,
demo runs out, or course ends.
The expiring capability establishes a secure connection to a web server
to validate the current date and time and prevent users from rolling back
their system clock to circumvent the logic. The ability to set the
synchronization frequency has been added to allow customers to balance the
need for timely expiration and the load on their network. Expiring virtual
machines also include the ability to display a custom message for virtual
machines about to expire and after a virtual machine has expired. Finally,
a lease period can be defined to allow users to run offline for plane trips
and remote work.
*Virtual Tablet Sensors
Workstation runs very well on the new tablet and convertible PCs. Last year
VMware enabled touch screen input to be passed through to the virtual
machine. Workstation 10 introduces a virtual Accelerometer, Gyroscope,
Compass and Ambient Light sensor.
Customers who run Workstation 10 on a Windows 8 tablet and install Windows
8 in a VM, will be able to shake, twirl, tilt, and spin their tablet and
sensor aware applications running in a virtual machine will respond
accordingly.
*User Interface Enhancements
There are many user interface improvements that we have included in the
Workstation 10 release. The highlights include:
*Windows 8 Unity Mode Support
We are continuing to improve how the Workstation Unity user-interface works
with Microsoft's "Modern UI" or the "Microsoft Design Language"
(The new tile interface in Windows 8 formerly known as Metro).
Microsoft Store applications are now available in the Unity menu and can be
launched directly from it.
*Multiple Monitor Navigation
When running with 2, 3, 4 or more monitors it has been frustrating to use
the full screen mode in Workstation and toggle through each combination of
monitors to get to the one you want. The full screen toolbar now has an
option to choose your configuration from a menu and jump to it immediately.
*Power Off Suspended Virtual Machines
Workstation 10 lets you simply power off a suspended Virtual Machine in
order to make changes to the configuration without powering it on and then
off first. Powering off a suspended virtual machine will lose any
information stored in memory, but will not lose anything saved to the
virtual disk.
*Remote Hardware Upgrade
When working with virtual machines running remotely on vSphere or on
another instance of Workstation, you can now remotely upgrade the virtual
hardware version.
*Localized into Simplified Chinese
The Workstation user interface and online help has been translated into
Simplified Chinese.
*New Converter
This release includes the latest version of the VMware Standalone Converter.
The Converter enables users to turn a physical machine into a virtual
machine. This version of the Converter includes the ability to convert
machines running Windows 8, Windows Server 2012, and RHEL 6 operating
systems. It supports virtual and physical machines with Unified Extensible
Firmware Interfaces (UEFI) and EXT4 file systems as well as GUID Partition
Table (GPT) disks.
*OVFTool
The Open Virtual Machine Format (OVF) is a virtual machine distribution
format that supports sharing virtual machines between products and
organizations. The VMware OVF Tool is a command-line utility that
enables a user to import and export OVF packages to and from a wide
variety of VMware products. The latest release of the OVFTool is included
with VMware Workstation 10 and is used to upload and download virtual
machines to and from vSphere. The OVFTool is also used to import an .OVF
file which may come in handy when importing virtual machines created using
desktop virtualization software developed by Oracle.
*VMRun Enhancements
The VMRun command line utility has been enhanced with two new options
getGuestIPAddress and checkToolsState to retrieve the IP address of the
guest operating system and determine the state of VMware Tools in a guest.
*Cloud Management Tools
The VMware Workstation team has been making enhancements and working with
partners to enable cloud management tools to be used with virtual machines
running in VMware Workstation 10.
*We would like to thank Mitchell Hashimoto at Vagrant for his development
of the Vagrant VMware Provider. See http://www.vagrantup.com/vmware for more
information.
*VMware would also like to thank Christian Hammond for the development of a
Chef knife plug-in for VMware Workstation. See
https://github.com/chipx86/knife-wsfusion for more information.
*Embedded 30-day Trial
Workstation 10 can now be evaluated for 30-days by simply entering your
email address the first time you run the application. This change is
intended to make it much easier for our customers to learn about the
latest release of VMware Workstation without their license keys being
trapped by spam filters.
*VMware KVM
Many of our customers have asked for a way to run a virtual machine so that
their users do not realize they are running in a virtual machine. VMware
Workstation 10 includes a new executable (on Windows only for now) called
VMware KVM. Run vmware-kvm.exe vmx-file.vmx from the command line and your
virtual machine will launch in full screen with no toolbar or any other
indicator that you are running a VM. You can use Ctrl-Alt to ungrab from the
virtual machine and the Pause/Break key to toggle between multiple virtual
machines running under VMware KVM, or between a virtual machine and the host
system. The user experience should be just like that of using a KVM switch -
hence the name.
If you simply type vmware-kvm.exe from the command line you will get some
options that can be used in this format:
vmware-kvm.exe [OPTIONS] vmx-file.vmx
If you run vmware-kvm.exe --preferences you will presented with an interface
that allows you to configure certain behaviors such as the key used to cycle
between virtual machines.
This is the latest generation of an executable previously called
VMware-fullscreen.exe that previously shipped with Workstation 8 with a
major upgrade in display handling.
*WSX 1.1
Try out the latest version of WSX which can be found on the VMware
Communities page at: https://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/wsx.
Resolved Issues
The following issues are resolved in this release of VMware Workstation.
*Easy Install supports RTM versions of Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2
Easy Install now supports RTM versions of Windows 8.1 and
Windows Server 2012 R2.
*Workstation or Player on Windows freezes if another application is frozen.
Other stuck Windows applications could cause Workstation or Player to freeze
while waiting for the application to respond.
*Virtual machine hangs when 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.
*Improved compatibility with some AMD CPUs
Updated masking to match capabilities of certain AMD PileDriver CPUs.
*Virtual machines displayed incorrectly on a multi-monitor Windows host when
the displays have differing pixel density (DPI.)
*Boot from CD/DVD when Legacy Floppy is disabled
Known Issues
Known issues from prior releases of VMware Workstation 10 also might apply
to VMware Workstation 10.0.1.
*Workstation UI may crash when creating full clones of very large virtual
machines
Workstation for Windows may run out of memory creating a full clone of a
virtual machine with virtual disks many terabytes in size.
Workaround: Copy the virtual machine outside VMware Workstation or use
VMware Workstation for Linux.
*Cannot launch Workstation in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.4
If you cannot launch Workstation on a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.4 host,
you may not have sudo access in gksu.
Workaround: Change your gksu settings in /etc/vmware/config, using
gksu.rootMethod. Set gksu.rootMethod to sudo or su.
*Hot-plug operations involving SATA virtual disks do not work
VMware Workstation allows you to add virtual disks connected to the SATA
adapter while the virtual machine is powered on. When you do this,
Workstation shows the operation was successfully completed, but disks are
not visible to the operating system installed in the virtual machine.
Workaround: Power off the virtual machine, connect the disk, then power the
virtual machine back on.
*ODBC driver creation shuts down when shared folders are enabled on a
Windows 2008 guest
When creating an ODBC driver for use in mapping a drive, the ODBC dialog
disappears during the step when you select a Workbook and choose a folder
and Workstation crashes.
Workaround: Do not map any VMware shared folders as drive letters. Use the
Universal Naming Convention (UNC) paths instead, for example:
\\vmware-host\Shared Folders\
*VMware Tools changes cause black screen in virtual machine
After VMware Tools are uninstalled or automatically upgraded for a
Windows 8.0 virtual machine, the virtual machine may display as a black
screen for two minutes.
Workaround: Install Windows 8.0 update KB2836988 or upgrade to Windows 8.1.
Do not shut down the virtual machine when it is in black screen.
