VMware Workstation 6.0 Beta

The world of computer virtualization (the ability to simulate one computer running entirely within another computer) is getting crowded. At one time, VMware Workstation was essentially alone in this world, but competition from Microsoft and Parallels, along with kernel support in Linux, and now even hardware built into Intel processors has crowded the field. Even VMware has its own free virtualization tool, VMware Server, that’s been horning in on its ever-popular VMware Workstation. Fortunately, the development of Workstation continues, culminating with the release of version 6.0 beta.

The biggest news in this latest release of Workstation is that it supports 32-bit and 64-bit Windows Vista as a host OS and guest OS. VMware also adds full support for the latest versions of Ubuntu, Mandriva, Netware, SuSE, Solaris, and Red Hat OSes. When you install the proper VMware tools into the virtualized OSes, there’s much better drag-and-drop support. Also new is multiple-monitor support, which lets you indicate how many monitors you want the virtual machine to detect, no matter how many monitors you attach to the host.

Under the hood there are direct hooks to common programming debuggers that make it easier for programmers to look at low-level emulated hardware and operating system issues. Virtual machines can now fully run “in the background,” and each machine also acts as a VNC server without the hassle of installing any specialized VNC software in the guest. As always, there are several networking options, which even let you develop a small, private network on a single PC among multiple virtual machines each running different OSes.

Although there’s a long list of known issues in the Readme file, the beta feels free from problems. The debugging code, however, does render VMware Workstation a little slower than its previous versions.

Official product name: VMware Workstation 6.0
Version previewed: 6.0 Beta 1
Publisher: VMware
Developer and URL: VMware
ETA: Q2 2007
Why you should care: The best in PC virtualization gets better.

[tags]VMware, virtualization[/tags]