VMWare Player 7.0 Released

[MilesAhead]

VMWare Player 7.0 Released.

I just installed it and am running W7 x64 VM to post this.  So far I don't see any difference other than it asks you to update VMWare Tools.
I had 6.x on with 5 VMs.  It installed apparently without losing anything.  The VMs are still there. 

[Ath]

I've been using VMWare Workstation, the 'big brother' of Player, professionally for several years. Every update has been painless and an incremental improvement over the previous version.

[xtabber]

VMware Workstation 11 is also out. 

Gouging pricing is $250 for a new license, $150 for an upgrade from WS 9 or 10.  Upgrading from earlier versions requires a new license.

All VMware licenses are 30% off through December 5, 2014, but that's still pretty steep for upgrades.

Been using Workstation since Version 4 (2003), but VirtualBox is starting to look mighty tempting.

[mwb1100]

Gouging pricing is $250 for a new license, $150 for an upgrade from WS 9 or 10.

Keep in mind that VMware Player is free for personal, non-commercial use.  For commercial use, it's considerably cheaper than Workstation (but still not what I'd call cheap).  I think its feature set covers most people's needs. Most Workstation features that aren't supported in Player Pro seem pretty 'Enterprisey' to me.  See the Player Pro FAQ and the comparison page for details.  The features that are missing that I think might be more commonly needed are:

 - snapshots
 - Virtual Network Editor

If you don't find yourself needing those things, then Player Pro (or the free non-Pro) might be the way to go. Player Pro is also on sale right now for 30% off: $105 or $56 for an upgrade.

[Jibz]

I switched to VirtualBox back when my VMware 5 license expired. I did not want to keep paying the upgrade costs when there was a free alternative that worked well enough.

There were some minor differences in features and speed, but for my use it really didn't matter.

[MilesAhead]

I switched to VirtualBox back when my VMware 5 license expired. I did not want to keep paying the upgrade costs when there was a free alternative that worked well enough.

There were some minor differences in features and speed, but for my use it really didn't matter.

I've used VirtualBox in the past.  It worked fine. This last time around I think I saw a post about how easy it was to create a VM in Player and tried it.  If the Guest OS is in the list then it's ice cream.