VMware Workstation Player is a desktop virtualization application for Windows and Linux PCs. It creates, configures and runs virtual machines. This lets a second operating system run in a window alongside the host system without restarting the computer. It was the simpler member of the VMware Workstation family, free for personal, non-commercial use and licensed for commercial use.
Current status under Broadcom
VMware Workstation Player is no longer sold or offered as a separate download. Broadcom, which now owns VMware, replaced it with VMware Workstation Pro. Workstation Pro is now free for personal, educational and commercial use without a license key. The free Pro edition includes the functions that were previously exclusive to Pro, such as snapshots, advanced networking and custom virtual machine configurations.
Existing Player installations continue to work, and customers with active Player contracts keep receiving updates and support until those contracts end. Users without a support contract rely on community forums, the knowledge base and documentation for help.
The Player window and library
VMware Workstation Player opens on a Home tab with four actions: create a new virtual machine, open an existing one, download a virtual appliance or open help. The library lists every virtual machine the user creates or opens. Selecting a powered-off machine shows a summary of its configuration and state, with buttons to start it or edit its settings.
Clicking Play powers the machine on and switches to the console view, which behaves like the monitor of a physical computer. While a machine is running, icons on the status bar represent its virtual hard disks, CD/DVD and floppy drives and network adapters. Clicking one connects or disconnects the device or opens its settings.
Building a new virtual machine
The New Virtual Machine wizard creates new machines. It first asks for the installation source: an installer disc in the host’s drive, an ISO image file, or no media at all. Choosing no media creates a blank virtual disk for a manual installation later. The user then names the machine, chooses the folder for its files, sets the virtual disk capacity and decides whether the disk is stored as one file or split into several. The user can customize the hardware before creating the machine.
With Easy Install, the wizard collects the guest system’s setup details up front, so the operating system installs without the usual questions. Without it, the guest system installs as it would on a physical PC. A Windows 11 machine automatically receives a virtual Trusted Platform Module. Player can also import virtual machines from other formats.
A virtual appliance is a preconfigured application packaged with its own operating system inside a virtual machine. The Download a Virtual Appliance command opens VMware’s appliance marketplace in a browser.
Guest display modes
A running guest can stay in the Player window, which can be sized to match the guest’s display. It can also switch to full screen mode, which hides the window borders. In full screen mode, one virtual machine can span several host monitors.
Unity mode, available for Windows guests, hides the console and places guest application windows directly on the host desktop and taskbar. On a Windows host, the guest’s Start menu becomes reachable from the host Start menu. File dialogs in a Unity window still show only the guest’s file system. Unity has been deprecated in recent releases.
Exchanging data with the host
After VMware Tools is installed in the guest, VMware Workstation Player supports drag and drop of files, folders, text and images between host and guest. It also supports copy and paste of text. Many other functions, including fitting the guest display to the window, also depend on VMware Tools.
Shared folders give a virtual machine access to a host folder or a network directory the host can reach, subject to the host user’s permissions. Windows guests see them as desktop icons, and Linux guests mount them under /mnt/hgfs. Because a shared folder exposes host files to software inside the guest, it suits only trusted virtual machines.
Virtual networking
Each virtual network adapter uses one of three connection types. Bridged networking connects the guest to the host’s network through the host’s physical adapter. NAT is the default network that the wizard assigns to new machines. Host-only networking creates a private network contained within the host, which isolates the guest from outside networks.
Machine settings and devices
Settings for a powered-off machine cover memory allocation, processors, disks, video and sound, the guest operating system type and the folder that holds the machine’s files. VMware Workstation Player can encrypt a virtual machine so it opens only with the correct password. It also keeps a message log of warnings for each machine. The user can connect USB devices, smart card readers and other removable hardware to a running guest and disconnect them from it.
For automation, the vmrun command-line tool starts, stops and controls virtual machines. A REST API exposes similar operations to scripts. The vctl command manages containers and Kubernetes clusters.
