VMware Updates Four Desktop Virtualization Suites: Workstation Pro, Player, Fusion & Fusion Pro

VMware has today launched the latest versions of four of its products, two each for the Workstation and Fusion series. These releases have come a bit earlier than expected, as Workstation 11 came out in its final form just last December. With Windows 10 having launched last month, though, VMware clearly didn’t want to take long in coming out with a fully supported product.

All four products tout the usual assortment of perks: improved performance, support for the latest OSes, and increased capabilities. In particular, DirectX 10.0 support has been added this go around, while OpenGL support has been bumped to 3.3. It’s hard to say if we’ll ever see DX11 support hit the software, but it sure would be nice.

If you have a freshly poured cup of drink and want to delve into all of what’s new in the respective update for the software you use, you can head on over to the Workstation Zealot or Fusion blogs and click through for the release notes. You can also peruse the feature comparison charts for Workstation here and Fusion here.

VMware Workstation Pro 12’s Main Interface

In Workstation, a tool I use pretty religiously, there are some minor enhancements that stick out. In fact, some of these could be considered long overdue, such as the ability to detach a VM from the main client, and the ability to have a VM automatically suspend if the host is shut down. This is just the icing on the cake, though; all four products have a slew of updates worth reading into.

VMware Workstation Pro 12’s GPU Capabilities

In case it wasn’t too obvious, these releases usher in some updated naming schemes. Workstation is now called Workstation Pro, and Player Pro is now called Workstation Player. While that latter name change might make it sound like the free version of the player is no more, that’s not so. It can be snagged here.

Shifting attention to pricing, Workstation 12 Pro is priced at $249.99 as before, while Player is $149.99. Those who are using recent versions can upgrade to the latest version of Workstation for $149.99 and Player for $79.99, respectively. On the Fusion side, the regular edition is $79.99 while Pro is $199.99. Upgrades can be had for $49.99 and $119.99, respectively. If you happened to have purchased any edition of the software between July 29th and now, you can take advantage of a free upgrade – a great thing since these new versions came out earlier than expected.