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VMware Workstation 6.0 Release Notes

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Notes on VMware Workstation 6.0.3, Build 80004

Build 80004 is a release build of VMware Workstation.

The release notes contain the following:

New in Version 6.0.3

Workstation 6.0.3 adds full support for the following operating systems:

  • 32-bit and 64-bit Ubuntu Linux 7.10 as host and guest operating systems
  • 32-bit and 64-bit Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.6 as host and guest operating systems
  • 32-bit and 64-bit Asianux Server 3 as a guest operating system
  • 32-bit and 64-bit Turbolinux 10 Server as a guest operating system

Note: The Eclipse Integrated Virtual Debugger is not yet supported on Ubuntu Linux 7.10 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.6 hosts.

Workstation 6.0.3 addresses the following security issues:

  • On Windows hosts, if you have configured and enabled a shared folder, it is possible for an attacker to write arbitrary content from a guest system to arbitrary locations on the host system (CORE-2007-0930). (bug 200360)
  • An internal security audit determined that a malicious user could attain and exploit LocalSystem privileges by causing the authd process to connect to a named pipe that is opened and controlled by the malicious user. (Foundstone CODE-BUG-H-001) In this situation, the malicious user could successfully impersonate authd and attain privileges under which Authd is executing. (bug 193049)
  • This release updates the libpng library to version 1.2.22 to remove various security vulnerabilities. (bug 224453)
  • This release updates the OpenSSL library to address various vulnerabilities to denial-of-service attacks and buffer overflows. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) assigned the following names to these issues: CVE-2006-2940, CVE-2006-2937, CVE-2006-4343. (bug 216493)
  • Workstation 6.0.2 allowed anonymous console access to the guest by means of the VIX API. This release, Workstation 6.0.3, disables this feature. This means that the Eclipse Integrated Virtual Debugger and the Visual Studio Integrated Virtual Debugger will now prompt for user account credentials to access a guest. (bug 187785)

Workstation 6.0.3 is also a maintenance bug fix release to improve VMware Workstation 6.0.2. See Fixed Bugs for information about additional bug fixes.

New in Version 6.0.2

Workstation 6.0.2 is a maintenance bug fix release to improve VMware Workstation 6.0.1. See Fixed Bugs for information on what has been fixed.

New in Version 6.0.1

Updated Support for Host and Guest Operating Systems

Workstation 6.0.1 adds experimental support for the following operating systems:

  • 32-bit and 64-bit Windows Server 2008 (code name Longhorn) as host and guest operating systems
  • 32-bit and 64-bit SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP1 as host and guest operating systems
  • 32-bit and 64-bit openSUSE Linux 10.3 as host and guest operating systems
  • 32-bit and 64-bit Turbolinux 10 Server as a guest operating system

Workstation 6.0.1 adds full support for the following operating systems:

  • 32-bit and 64-bit Ubuntu Linux 7.04 as host and guest operating systems
  • 32-bit and 64-bit Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.5 (formerly called 4.0 Update 5) as host and guest operating systems
  • 32-bit and 64-bit FreeBSD 6.2 as a guest operating system

This release also includes the following new features:

  • Enablement for Japanese Product Versions
    For more information, see the Japanese release notes.
    Note: Technical Support services for VMware Workstation are currently delivered in English. Japanese-speaking support engineers are available in a limited capacity during the operating hours of the local support center. For more information, see VMware local language support.
  • User Interface for Collecting Support Data — You can now click a button in the Workstation Help > About dialog box to gather troubleshooting data for VMware Technical Support. Previously, you had to run the script from the command line.

Workstation 6.0.1 addresses the following security issues:

  • This release fixes a problem that prevented VMware Player from launching. This problem was accompanied by the error message VMware Player unrecoverable error: (player) Exception 0xc0000005 (access violation) has occurred. This problem could result in a security vulnerability from some images stored in virtual machines downloaded by the user. (bug 179485)
  • This release fixes several security vulnerabilities in the VMware DHCP server that could enable a malicious web page to gain system-level privileges.
    Thanks to Neel Mehta and Ryan Smith of the IBM Internet Security Systems X-Force for discovering and researching these vulnerabilities.
    The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) assigned the following names to these issues: CVE-2007-0061, CVE-2007-0062, CVE-2007-0063. (bug 168236)
  • This release fixes a security vulnerability that could allow a malicious remote user to exploit the library file IntraProcessLogging.dll to overwrite files in a system.
    Thanks to the Goodfellas Security Research Team for discovering and researching these vulnerabilities.
    The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) assigned the following name to this issue: CVE-2007-4059. (bug 181493)
  • This release fixes a security vulnerability that could allow a malicious remote user to exploit the library file vielib.dll to overwrite files in a system.
    Thanks to the Goodfellas Security Research Team for discovering and researching these vulnerabilities.
    The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) assigned the following names to this issue: CVE-2007-4155. (bug 181478)
  • This release fixes a security vulnerability that could allow a guest operating system user with administrative privileges to cause memory corruption in a host process, and thus potentially execute arbitrary code on the host. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) assigned the following name to this issue: CVE-2007-4496.
    Thanks to Rafal Wojtczvk of McAfee for identifying and reporting this issue. (bug 162799)
  • This release fixes a security vulnerability that could allow a guest operating system user without administrator privileges to cause a host process to become unresponsive or exit unexpectedly, making the guest operating system unusable. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) assigned the following name to this issue: CVE-2007-4497.
    Thanks to Rafal Wojtczvk of McAfee for identifying and reporting this issue. (bug 163135)
  • This release fixes a security vulnerability in which Workstation was starting registered Windows services such as the Authorization service with "bare" (unquoted) paths, such as c:\program files\vmware\.... Applications and services in Windows must be started with a quoted path. This vulnerability could allow a malicious user to escalate user privileges.
    Thanks to Foundstone for discovering this vulnerability. (bugs 176801, 180181)

Key New Features in Version 6.0

Updated Support for Host and Guest Operating Systems

Workstation 6.0 adds experimental support for the following operating systems:

  • 32-bit and 64-bit Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.5 (Beta, formerly called 4.0 Update 5) as host and guest operating systems
  • 32-bit and 64-bit SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 SP4 (Beta) as host and guest operating systems
  • 32-bit and 64-bit Ubuntu Linux 7.04 as a guest operating system

Workstation 6.0 adds full support for the following operating systems:

  • 32-bit and 64-bit Windows Vista as host and guest operating systems
  • 32-bit and 64-bit Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.0 as host and guest operating systems
  • 32-bit and 64-bit Ubuntu Linux 6.10 as host and guest operating systems
  • 32-bit and 64-bit Mandriva Linux 2007 as host and guest operating systems
  • 32-bit and 64-bit Solaris 10 Update 3 as guest operating system
  • 32-bit Novell Netware 6.5 SP5 as guest operating system

This release also includes the following new features:

  • Support for High-Speed USB 2.0 Devices
  • Multiple Monitor Support — At the click of a button, the guest can now span monitors and also reflect the monitor topology — meaning that applications, task bars, and so on inside the guest appear as you would expect them to on a multi-monitor system. You can specify how many monitors a virtual machine can detect, regardless of how many monitors are attached to the host. This feature is especially useful if you plan to deploy the virtual machine to a different host after you create it. You can also specify what screen resolution to use.
  • Integrated Virtual Debuggers — With the new Workstation IDE (integrated development environment) plug-ins, software developers are provided with menu items and toolbar buttons in Visual Studio (Windows only) or Eclipse (Windows or Linux) to easily develop and debug programs in virtual machines. Documentation for the virtual debuggers is now included in the Workstation User's Manual.
  • Run Virtual Machines in the Background — You can now leave virtual machines and teams running in the background when you exit Workstation. On the host, a system tray icon indicates how many virtual machines are running in the background. Click the icon to open a virtual machine.
  • Virtual Machines Can Act as VNC Servers — You can set a virtual machine to act as a VNC server without having to install any specialized VNC software in the guest.
  • Continuous State Record/Replay Capabilities (Experimental) — This feature lets you record all of a Workstation 6 virtual machine's activity over a period of time. Unlike Workstation's movie-capture feature, the record/replay feature lets you exactly duplicate the operations and state of the virtual machine throughout the time of the recording. At any time during playback of a recording, you can click a button to "go live" from that point of execution.
  • Automation Via Expanded VIX 1.1 API — The VIX API (formerly known as the Programming API) is now compatible with Workstation 6.0. This API allows you to write scripts and programs to automate virtual machine operations. This release of the API is available in the C language. There are additional language bindings for Perl, COM, and shell scripts (vmrun).
  • Physical-to-Virtual Conversion and Enhanced Import Functionality (Windows Hosts Only) — Included in this release is the Converter Import wizard from the VMware Converter product. Using this wizard enables you to convert a physical Windows machine into a virtual machine, convert a virtual machine from one VMware virtual machine format to another, and convert virtual machines or system images from popular third-party vendors.
  • Appliance View for Virtual Appliances — Rather than having users see a console view for an appliance, you can now configure the new appliance view. It gives you a brief description of the type of server or appliance and provides a link that opens the browser on the guest system and connects to the correct port for the server console.
  • Support for Paravirtualized Linux Kernels — If you have a VMware VMI (Virtual Machine Interface) 3.0 enabled kernel in a Linux guest operating system, you can now enable paravirtual support in the virtual machine.
  • Virtual Machine Communication Interface (Experimental) — VMCI provides a faster means of communication among applications running on the host and in virtual machines. The VMCI infrastructure comprises an SDK and drivers for host and guest. This experimental feature is especially suited for users who want to write client-server applications. For more information, view the documentation from the VMCI Developer Resources page. Also see the README file. On Linux hosts, the README file is located in the directory /usr/share/doc/vmware/vmware-vmci/samples. On Windows hosts, it is in the VMCI folder in VMware Workstation installation directory; for example, C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Workstation\VMCI.
  • VMware Player 2.0 — The new VMware Player Welcome page gives you the option of browsing to a virtual machine file or downloading a virtual appliance from the Virtual Appliance Marketplace at vam.vmware.com. You can then use the new appliance view when running a virtual appliance. For more information about standalone VMware Player 2.0, see the VMware Player Documentation page.

Fixed Bugs

Fixed in 6.0.3 | Fixed in 6.0.2 | Fixed in 6.0.1

Known Issues Fixed in Workstation 6.0.3

  • On openSUSE Linux 10.3 hosts, USB devices cannot be used in a virtual machine unless you plug the USB device in to the host before powering on the virtual machine. (bug 177615)
  • With Workstation 6.0.2 the iPhone could be seen as a camera device by a Windows guest but iTunes did not list the device in its device list. In this release, Workstation 6.0.3, the iPhone is usable and visible in iTunes for Windows guests. (bug 191214)
  • On 64-bit Windows Vista hosts, if the guest has a USB controller and you attempt to connect or disconnect a USB device, occasionally the guest crashes to blue screen with a "USBPROT.SYS" error. (bug 219224)
  • For Windows guests, if a filename inside a shared folder includes any extended ASCII characters (that is, characters whose ASCII code is above 128), then you cannot view any of the files in the shared folder. The folder looks empty when you access it from the guest operating system. The value of such characters could not be converted to UTF-8. (bug 222397)
  • For Windows guests, if you configured the virtual machine to connect to a specific physical floppy drive instead of using auto-detect, and if you then start the virtual machine without having a floppy disk in the drive, you might see a "Windows - No Disk" error message. (bug 217782)
  • On Windows guests, you cannot access files that are cached for offline access. This means that if you have set up the system to mount a network drive and enable the option to cache files for offline access, you still will not be able to access the files unless the remote server is available. (bug 201758)
  • On Linux guests that use X.Org Server 1.3, which includes Fedora Core 7 guests, you receive the following error message when installing VMware Tools: "Detected X.org 1.3. No drivers for X.org version 1.3." (bug 185281)
  • On some 64-bit Windows hosts, the host sometimes crashes when starting up a Linux virtual machine that has paravirtual kernel support enabled. (bug 192011)
  • If you install Workstation on a Linux host that uses kernel version 2.6.23 or newer, the necessary kernel modules do not build. Therefore, Workstation is installed but cannot start. (bug 200828)
  • On Windows Vista hosts and Windows guests, if you swap the left and right mouse button functions, as many left-handed people do, dragging and dropping files does not work correctly. (bug 188997)
  • Occasionally on Windows guests, the guest crashes when you use the multiple-monitor feature and view streaming video. This issue might arise if you have two monitors arranged one on top of another and you launch a media player from the secondary monitor. (bug 189779).
  • In some newer Linux guest operating systems, the mouse pointer becomes unusable after you install VMware Tools. (bug 156988)
  • Hardware breakpoints set in applications that run inside guest operating systems are lost occasionally. (bug 199267)

Bugs Reported in Workstation 6.0.1 and Fixed in Workstation 6.0.2

  • Hosts with AMD Duron processors might not be able to power on virtual machines. This problem resulted because Duron processors that are based on Athlon do not have Intel SSE (Streaming SIMD Extensions). (bug 183866)
  • Ubuntu 7.04 virtual machines sometimes power off unexpectedly if paravirtual kernel support is enabled. (bug 190499)

Bugs Reported as Known Issues in Workstation 6.0 and Fixed in Workstation 6.0.1

  • If you attempt to install a guest operating system by using a PXE boot with ZENworks Imaging, the installation process hangs. (bug 159455)
  • Occasionally, graphics are not displayed correctly in the guest. For example, bitmap graphics in edit mode in PowerPoint, graphs in Quicken, and graphics elements in Microsoft Word might not display at all. (bug 164981)
  • On Linux hosts, the Favorites list might get erased if you exit Workstation and manually choose to run some virtual machines in the background. (bug 162623)
  • On Windows Vista hosts, you might not be able to view or select physical disk partitions when creating a virtual machine. (bug 156997)
  • If you are using multiple monitors and manually configure the display resolution in the guest to a combined size that is larger than the guest VRAM supports, you might get a blue screen or crash the guest. (bug 161721)
  • On Windows hosts, if you want to create and run applications with the VMCI SDK, you need to rename vmci.dll to crosstalk.dll. (bug 162620)
  • On Windows hosts, there is no command-line option for starting the a virtual machine in quick switch mode. You can now use the -m command-line option with vmware.exe. Workstation will then start the virtual machine in quick switch mode. Previously, this option was available only on Linux hosts. (bug 177609)

Bugs Reported as Known Issues in Workstation 5.5.3 and Fixed in Workstation 6.0

  • On Linux guests that have SELinux enabled, accessing shared folders (/mnt/hgfs) fails with kernel oops error messages. (bug 131213)
  • In guests running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.0 or Ubuntu Linux 6.10 (or any Linux guests that use Xorg X Windows system versions 7.1 or higher) the Workstation 5.5.x VMware Tools installer does not install drivers for X Windows, and consequently the mouse does not perform correctly (bug 124689). The version of VMware Tools included with Workstation 6.0 does install the correct drivers.
  • Workstation 5.5.3 does not support USB for Solaris guests. Workstation 6.0 does support USB for Solaris guests.

Known Issues

  • When you install Workstation on a Windows Vista host, be sure to enter the serial number at installation time. This is necessary so that when you enter the serial number, you will have the required permission settings. If you enter the serial number later, as a different user, you might not have the correct permissions.
  • If you run the Workstation installer on a Windows Vista host in order to use the Change option, you need to first turn off UAC (user account control). Otherwise, the wizard immediately displays the Finish dialog box and you receive an error message.
  • On Windows Vista hosts, if you uninstall Workstation from the Control Panel, you might see a UAC (user account control) prompt that warns you about an unidentified program wanting to access your computer. You can safely click Allow.
  • On Windows Vista hosts, if you start Workstation without administrative privileges, power on a virtual machine, exit Workstation with the virtual machine running in the background, and then start Workstation with administrative privileges, you cannot access the virtual machine.
    Workaround: Either always run Workstation with administrative privileges or always without.
  • On Windows hosts, you need to run the Virtual Network Editor as a user with administrative privileges. If you run it without administrative privileges, you might see inaccurate information. On Windows Vista hosts, this means you need to be logged in as a member of the Administrators group and either disable UAC (user account control) or start the Virtual Network Editor by right-clicking it in the Start menu and choosing Run as Administrator.
  • Sometimes when upgrading VMware Tools in Vista guests, you see warnings about files being in use. Workaround: Click the Ignore button to allow the upgrade to continue.
  • On Windows Vista guests, to open the VMware Tools control panel, you need to be logged in as an Administrator user.
  • If you are upgrading to this release from the Workstation 6.0.1/ACE 2.0.1 beta release, upgrade VMware Tools on Windows guests by uninstalling VMware Tools and then reinstalling. For example, on the guest, go to Start > Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs, and remove the VMware Tools program. Next, use Workstation 6.0.1 to install VMware Tools again.
  • For Windows 95 virtual machines created with Workstation 4.5 or ACE 1.0, upgrades of VMware Tools are sometimes incomplete. Workaround: First, uninstall VMware Tools. (For example, on Windows guests, go to Start > Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs, and remove the VMware Tools program). Next, use Workstation 6 to install VMware Tools again.
  • Turbolinux 10 Server has a problem with switching from X to VGA such that the screen becomes black. You encounter this problem at the end of the process of installing the Turbolinux 10 Server operating system. After you click Finish in the installation wizard, the screen becomes black and the system does not reboot.
    Workaround: Manually reboot the guest operating system.
  • If you install Workstation on a Windows 2003 Server host, Workstation help does not display correctly until you enable JavaScript. This is because, on Windows 2003 Server, JavaScript is disabled by default in Internet Explorer.
    Workaround: In Internet Explorer, choose Tools > Options > Internet > Custom Level > Scripting > Active Scripting, and choose Enable.
  • Avoid attempting to exit Workstation and run a virtual machine in the background while recording activity on that virtual machine, using the record/replay feature. Doing so might cause the virtual machine to crash. Always stop recording before sending a virtual machine to run in the background.
  • Do not attempt to play recordings of virtual machine activity that you made with an earlier, version of Workstation. On Linux hosts, doing so might cause Workstation to exit unexpectedly.
  • When the virtual floppy drive is connected to the physical floppy drive on the host, the guest might not recognize floppy disk changes.
    Workaround: Connect the virtual floppy drive to the physical floppy drive while a floppy disk is in the physical drive.
  • Workstation fails to install on 64-bit Linux hosts unless 32-bit compatibility libraries are installed in host. Some 64-bit Linux host operating systems don't install 32-bit compatibility libraries by default. Workstation runs on 64-bit systems, but needs the 32-bit compatibility libraries installed. When you try to install Workstation on a 64-bit Linux host without the 32-bit compatibility libraries, an error message similar to the following may appear:
    /usr/bin/ldd: line 171: /lib/ld-linux.so.2: No such file or directory
    Workaround: Install a 32-bit compatibility package for your Linux distribution. The name of the 32-bit compatibility package varies across distributions. For example, for Ubuntu you should install the ia32-libs and ia32-libs-gtk packages. See your distribution's documentation or Web site to determine the 32-bit compatibility package for your distribution.
  • Workstation will not run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 if the Xen kernel is installed. Workaround: You must install the Red Hat Enterprise Linux kernel without Xen to use Workstation.
  • On Mandrake 10.0 guests, dragging and dropping files from guest to host does not work.
  • If you share a folder between a Linux host and a Windows guest, symbolic links will not be accessible by the Windows guest. Symbolic links appear as regular files on Windows guests, but the links are not followed when you attempt to open them.
  • On Windows Vista hosts, if you want to use File > Import to create a virtual machine from a physical machine, you need to start Workstation by right-clicking the desktop icon and choosing "Run as administrator."
  • On Windows Vista hosts, if you accidentally try to use File > Import to create a virtual machine from a Windows Vista machine, which is not supported, the import fails. All subsequent attempts to use the File > Import feature also fail until you restart the machine. This problem occurs only if the very first import you try is a Windows Vista physical machine. This can happen if you choose to import a physical machine and then use the default setting, which is the local machine.
    Workaround: Restart the ufad-ws60 service. This can be done by an Administrative user at the command line, with the following command: net stop ufad-ws60 & net start ufad-ws60. You can also use the Services Manager to restart the VMware Agent Service entry. Rebooting also works.
  • If you use File > Import to create a virtual machine from a remote Windows 2000 physical machine and specify an ESX server as the destination, you might see an error message that says, "VMware Converter installation failed." The resulting virtual machine might not power on successfully. Also, the VMware Converter Agent, which gets installed on the remote machine during the import process, does not get automatically uninstalled. To manually uninstall the VMware Converter Agent, use the Add/Remove Programs item in the remote physical machine's Control Panel. You might also need to reboot the machine.
  • Using File > Import to convert a physical machine to a virtual machine does not work if the source physical machine is running Windows NT.
  • Using File > Import to convert a physical machine to a virtual machine does not work if the source physical machine has VMware Converter installed on it.
  • Occasionally, when you use File > Import to convert a Symantec backup or Norton Ghost image (.sv2i files) with volume resizing, the operation hangs.
    Workarounds: First, try again. If the problem persists, try again without volume resizing.
  • If you use File > Import to convert a virtual machine, some of the configuration properties from the source might be lost. For example, a generic SCSI device or shared folder might be removed.
  • On hosts that use a Windows 2000 Professional SP4 operating system, occasionally, you won't be able to use File > Import to create a virtual machine from a physical machine. The following error message appears: Unable to determine guest operating system. This error occurs when the msdos.sys file is either not present or not accessible.
  • The File > Open and File > Import commands have several limitations for StorageCraft ShadowStore images (.spi files) and Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery images (.sv2i files). The limitations are:
    1. No support for dynamic disks.
    2. Images relating to the backup of the same machine should be in the same folder, with no other images placed there.
    3. All the volumes in the disk up to the active and system volumes must be backed up. (For example, say there are 4 partitions (1-4) on a disk, and partition 2 is the active volume and partition 3 is the system volume. Volumes 1-3 must be backed up.)
    4. If it is an incremental image, up to 16 incremental backups are supported.
    In addition, for StorageCraft images, there is no support for systems with logical drives if the logical drive is also a system/active volume.
  • Visual Studio 2005 allows multiple projects to be debugged simultaneously when Start is chosen. However, the Visual Studio Integrated Virtual Debugger currently supports only one project and one configuration for debugging at any given time. If you select multiple projects as debugging targets, the Visual Studio Integrated Virtual Debugger only chooses the first one on the list.
  • The Eclipse Integrated Virtual Debugger plug-in might crash on 32-bit Red Hat Enterprise Linux hosts that run Eclipse 3.3.

Known Issues on Japanese Systems

  • On Japanese systems, if Workstation is installed in a directory whose name ends with a Japanese 5c character (the backslash character in ASCII), then if you run a virtual machine in the background, you will not be able to restore it by right-clicking the system tray.
    Workaround: Start Workstation, display the sidebar, and click the virtual machine in the Powered-On list.
  • On Japanese hosts that use Windows Vista, if you attempt to use File > Import to convert a Virtual PC image of a Windows 2003 Enterprise Edition machine to a virtual machine, the resulting virtual machine might not boot or might crash to blue screen.
  • If you attempt to use File > Import to convert a remote Japanese Windows 2000 Pro SP4 physical machine to a virtual machine, the import fails.
  • You cannot use File > Open to convert a StorageCraft image to a virtual machine if the filename or path contains non-ASCII characters.
  • The VMware VIX API and other SDKs, such as the Virtual Machine Communication Interface, have not been localized for this release. Also, the documentation for these SDKs is available only in English.
  • The Eclipse Integrated Virtual Debugger has not been localized for this release. Also, the documentation for the Eclipse Integrated Virtual Debugger and the Visual Studio Integrated Virtual Debugger is available only in English.

Knowledge Base Articles

If you encounter any of the issues listed below, click the appropriate link or go to the VMware knowledge base (kb.vmware.com) and enter the article number as your search term.

You may also view a list of all knowledge base articles related to Workstation 6.0.