Colorado School of Mines - Nuclear Science and Engineering

VMware Workstation 8 is your on-ramp to the cloud. With over 50+ new features, it’s going to dramatically change the way you work with virtual machines. Save time, enhance collaboration, and do more than you ever thought possible with a PC.

Access Anytime, Anywhere

• VMware Workstation provides a seamless way to access all of the virtual machines you need, regardless of where they are running.   Connect to Server enables remote connections to virtual machines running on VMware Workstation, VMware vSphere, and VMware vCenter.  Now you can work with local and server hosted virtual machines side by side within the same interface.  You are no longer constrained by the power of your PC to run multiple virtual machines at the same time.

Share the Benefits

• Sharing a virtual machine is quickest way to share and test applications with your team in a more production like environment. Run VMware Workstation as a server to share virtual machines with your teammates, department, or organization. VMware Workstation provides enterprise caliber security to control user access and levels of control.

New UI, New Way to Work

• So you can seamlessly work in a connected workspace, VMware Workstation’s user interface has been completely revamped with simplified menus, live thumbnails, improved preferences screens, and a new virtual machine library. The new virtual machine library lists all of your virtual machines and allows you to search for them, whether they are running on your PC, a vSphere server, or team member’s copy of VMware Workstation.

Unleash the Power of Your PC

• VMware Workstation takes advantage of the latest hardware to replicate server and desktop environments. Create virtual machines with up to up to 64GB of RAM with significantly improved virtual SMP performance. And now for those times when you need it, virtual VT enables you to run 64-bit nested virtual machines. Additional improvements include improved NAT performance and support for HD audio, SuperSpeed USB (USB 3.0) and Bluetooth.

From PC to Datacenter

• Simply drag and drop a virtual machine to move it from your PC to a VMware vSphere server. It’s the easiest way to deploy a complete application environment from your PC to a server for further testing, demoing, or analysis.

Recycle Old Hardware

• Quickly and easily convert all those Microsoft Windows and Linux-based physical PCs sitting under or around your desk into VMware Workstation virtual machines. Get all the benefits of virtualization while freeing up desk space and hardware. VMware Workstation includes the latest standalone VMware Converter. Now you can take advantage of VMware Converter updates independently of VMware Workstation updates.

Easier Management

• VMware Workstation’s new update agent eliminates the pain of keeping VMware Tools up to date in all of your running Virtual Machines. The agent checks a central repository for VMware Tools updates, eliminating the need to manually install VMware Tools on every PC before update the virtual machines.

The physical computer on which you install Workstation is called the host system and its operating system is called the host operating system. To run Workstation, the host system and the host operating system must meet specific hardware and software requirements.

Processor Requirements for Host Systems
Supported Processors
The host system must have a 64-bit x86 CPU that meets the following requirements.

• LAHF/SAHF support in long mode
• 1.3GHz or faster core speed

Multiprocessor systems are supported.
When you install Workstation, the installer performs checks to make sure the host system has a supported processor. You cannot install Workstation if the host system does not meet the processor requirements.

Processor Requirements for 64-Bit Guest Operating Systems
The operating system that runs inside a virtual machine is called the guest operating system. To run 64-bit guest operating systems, the host system must have one of the following processors.

• An AMD CPU that has segment-limit support in long mode
• An Intel CPU that has VT-x support

If you have an Intel CPU that has VT-x support, you must verify that VT-x support is enabled in the host system BIOS. The BIOS settings that must be enabled for VT-x support vary depending on the system vendor. See the VMware knowledge base article at http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1003944 for information about how to determine if VT-x support is enabled.
When you install a 64-bit operating system, Workstation performs checks to make sure the host system has a supported processor. You cannot install a 64-bit operating system if the host system does not meet the processor requirements.

Processor Requirements for Windows 7 Aero Graphics

• To support Windows 7 Aero graphics, the host system should have either an Intel Dual Core 2.2GHz or later CPU or an AMD Athlon 4200+ or later CPU.

Supported Host Operating Systems

• Windows
• Linux

Memory Requirements for Host Systems

• The minimum memory required on the host system is 1GB. 2GB and above is recommended.
• To support Windows 7 Aero graphics in a virtual machine, at least 3GB of host system memory is required. 1GB of memory is allocated to the guest operating system and 256MB is allocated to graphics memory.

Display Requirements for Host Systems

• The host system must have a 16-bit or 32-bit display adapter. Use the latest graphics driver recommended for the host system.
• To support Windows 7 Aero graphics, the host system should have either an NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT or later or an ATI Radeon HD 2600 or later graphics processor.
• 3D benchmarks, such as 3DMark '06, might not render correctly or at all when running Windows Vista or Windows 7 virtual machines on some graphics hardware.

Disk Drive Requirements for Host Systems
Hard disk

• IDE and SCSI hard drives are supported.
• At least 1GB free disk space is recommended for each guest operating system and the application software used with it. If you use a default setup, the actual disk space needs are approximately the same as those for installing and running the guest operating system and applications on a physical computer.
• For basic installation, 200MB free disk space is required on Linux and 1.5GB free disk space is required on Windows. Delete the installer after the installation is finished to reclaim disk space.

Optical CD-ROM and DVD

• IDE and SCSI optical drives are supported.
• CD-ROM and DVD drives are supported.
• ISO disk image files are supported.

Floppy

• Virtual machines can connect to disk drives on the host computer. Floppy disk image files are also supported.

Local Area Networking Requirements for Host Systems

• You can use any Ethernet controller that the host operating system supports.
• Non-Ethernet networks are supported by using built-in network address translation (NAT) or by using a combination of host-only networking and routing software on the host operating system.

ALSA Requirements for Host Systems

• The ALSA library version on the host system must be version 1.0.16 or later.
• The sound card on the host system must support ALSA. The ALSA project Web site maintains a current listing of sound cards and chipsets that support ALSA.
• The sound device on the host system must not be muted.
• The current user must have the appropriate permissions to use the sound device.

Help System Requirements

• Internet Explorer 6 or later
• Mozilla Firefox 1.x or later
• Netscape 7.x or later
• Safari 1.x or later
• Opera 7.54u2 or later