Thank you for your interest in VMware Workstation. Below are answers to common questions about Workstation 5, including new features, things to consider before you start, how the evaluation works, supported hardware, technical support and how to buy.
VMware Workstation allows you to run multiple operating systems at the same time, on the same physical computer. It gives you the equivalent of additional PCs on your desktop. VMware Workstation installs as an application on top of Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003, Windows 2000 Server, or certain Linux distributions. Once installed, you can configure a virtual machine with memory, disk and its devices. Then you install an operating system on the virtual machine and boot it up as you would a physical PC. You can then use Workstation to test and debug software, including multi-tier configurations.
See Workstation product specifications for information on system requirements.
The performance under VMware Workstation depends on your hardware and virtual machine's configuration. Having a 500MHz or faster processor and 256MB memory is recommended for best performance. Make sure you install VMware tools in your guest operating system.
Note: Remember, virtual machines running under VMware Workstation are like physical computers in many ways - and, like physical computers, they generally perform better if they have faster processors and more memory.
Unfortunately, no. VMware Workstation evaluation packages are only available here along with electronic download.
Instructions to Evaluate
VMware offers self-help for evaluation users on our Web site. Free online resources include:
Please note that we do not currently offer any additional assistance to individual evaluation users. If you are a corporate or academic institution evaluation user, please contact our Sales Team for assistance