VMware Workstation Player (formerly VMware Player Pro) is a streamlined desktop virtualization application. It runs one or more operating systems on the same computer without rebooting.

VMware Workstation Player has simple user interface, provides unmatched operating system support and portability. It’s now easier than ever for IT professionals to get their users up and running with a corporate desktop. In addition, allows IT professionals to efficiently create and deliver a virtual desktop to employees, contractors or customers.

Run corporate virtual machines, experiment with new operating systems. Or safely try and test new software in an isolated virtual environment on a Windows or Linux PC.

VMware Workstation Player allows academic professionals to quickly deliver complete virtual desktops to students preconfigured with all the lessons, applications and tools required for the course while increasing control and security.

VMware Workstation Player Features:

Easy PC Virtualization for Windows and Linux

The program provides a streamlined user interface for creating, running and evaluating operating systems and applications in a virtual machine on Windows or Linux PCs. Easily interact and exchange data between applications running in the virtual machine and the desktop.

Unmatched OS Support for Ultimate Compatibility

VMware Player supports hundreds of guest operating systems – old and new. Therefore you can continue to run the applications you need in a virtual machine for as long as you want. VMware Workstation Player is the best way to run multiple operating systems and corporate desktops in an isolated and protected environment on modern hardware.

Virtual Machine Portability

With VMware Player you can containerize complete desktop environments in a virtual machine and easily share. There you can include the operating system, applications and user configurations. Instead of buying and shipping additional hardware, reduce cost by simply providing VMware Player along with a virtual machine containing your secure desktop image.

Run Restricted Virtual Machines

Workstation Player has the ability to run restricted virtual machines created by VMware Workstation or VMware Fusion Pro. Restricted virtual machines are the easiest way to secure corporate desktops with encryption, runtime password protection, USB access restriction, isolation between the host and guest OS, and time limitation.

Consolidate and Recycle Old PC Hardware

Use the free VMware vCenter Converter utility accessible from this Player to turn existing Windows and Linux based computers into virtual machines. And eliminate the need to re-install and re-configure your existing OS and applications. Once converted, use Workstation Player to manage and run all your virtual machine on new hardware.

Free for Personal Use

VMware Workstation Player is licensed for commercial use and is enabled to run restricted virtual machines. If you simply want to learn more about virtual machines or run them at home in a non-commercial environment, you may use this software at no cost.

What’s New in VMware Workstation Player 16.0.0 Build 16894299 | Sept 14, 2020:

• Container and Kubernetes Support
  • Build/run/pull/push container images using the vctl CLI.
  • Supports KIND kubernetes clusters running on top of Workstation Player.

Note: Windows 10 1809 or higher is required

• New Guest Operating System Support
  • RHEL 8.2
  • Debian 10.5
  • Fedora 32
  • CentOS 8.2
  • SLE 15 SP2 GA
  • FreeBSD 11.4
  • ESXi 7.0

• Support for DirectX 11 and OpenGL 4.1 in the Guest
  • Hardware Requirements:
    • For Windows hosts, a native GPU that supports DirectX 11.0 is required.
    • For Linux hosts, latest NVIDIA proprietary drivers are required.
  • Software Requirements:
    • Host Operating System (64-bit):
      • Windows 8 or higher
      • GNU/Linux with NVIDIA drivers that support OpenGL 4.5 and above
    • Guest Operating System
      • Windows 7 or higher
      • GNU/Linux with vmwgfx
• Vulkan Render Support for Linux Workstation Player. Workstation 16 Player enables 3D support for Intel GPUs on Linux hosts to deliver DirectX 10.1 and OpenGL 3.3 to VMs using Vulkan Renderer.Note: Linux host operating system with a recent Intel/Vulkan driver is needed, Mesa 20.1 or later is recommended.
• Sandboxed Graphics. Virtual machine security is enhanced by removing graphics render from vmx and running it as a separate sandbox process.
• USB 3.1 Controller Support. The virtual machines virtual XHCI controller is changed from USB 3.0 to USB 3.1 to support 10 Gbps.
• Larger VM
  • 32 virtual CPUs
  • 128 GB virtual memory
    Note: Running virtual machines with 32 vCPUs requires that your host and guest operating systems both support 32 logical processors.
  • 8 GB virtual graphics memory
• Dark Mode. Workstation 16 Player supports Dark Mode for optimized user experience.Note: Requires host operating systems to be Windows 10 1809 or higher
• vSphere 7.0 Support. In Workstation 16 you can perform the following:
  • Connect to vSphere 7.0.
  • Upload a local virtual machine to vSphere 7.0.
  • Download a remote virtual machine running on vSphere 7.0 to the local desktop.
• Performance Improvements
  • Improved file transfer speeds (Drag and Drop, Copy and Paste)
  • Improved virtual machine shutdown time.
  • Improved virtual NVMe storage performance.
• Improved Accessibility Support. Accessibility improvements have been added so Workstation Player is compliant with WCAG 2.1 criteria.

Product Support Notices

• Removal of restricted virtual machines. Restricted virtual machine has reached end of life and been removed from VMware Workstation 16 Player.

Important Fixes

• Workstation addresses multiple out-of-bounds read vulnerabilities in Cortado Thinprint component. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the identifiers CVE-2020-3986,  CVE-2020-3987, and CVE-2020-3988 to these issues.
• Workstation addresses a denial of service vulnerability due to an out-of-bounds write issue in Cortado Thinprint component. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the identifier CVE-2020-3989 to this issue.
• Workstation addresses an information disclosure vulnerability due to an integer overflow issue in Cortado Thinprint component. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the identifier CVE-2020-3990 to this issue.

Resolved Issues

• After priority.ungrabbed = “low” is set in the virtual machine configuration file, the priority of vmware-vmx process shows as Normal, when checked on the Host Task manager. This setting has always worked until Workstation Pro 15.5 was released, however with the 15.5.5 release the status of the process stays at Normal. This issue is now resolved.
• A Windows XP x64 virtual machine freezes during boot, when Workstation is running on Win10 host with Hyper-V Enabled. MSFT has bugs in APIC virtualization that block WinXP SP2 boot process. This issue is now resolved.