

There is a free-of-charge version, VMware Workstation Player (known as VMware Player until release of VMware Workstation 12 in 2015), for non-commercial use. VMware Workstation is developed and sold by VMware, Inc. Each virtual machine can execute its own operating system, including versions of Microsoft Windows, Linux, BSD, and MS-DOS. VMware Workstation Pro (known as VMware Workstation until release of VMware Workstation 12 in 2015) is a hosted (Type 2) hypervisor that runs on 圆4 versions of Windows and Linux operating systems (an x86-32 version of earlier releases was available) it enables users to set up virtual machines (VMs) on a single physical machine and use them simultaneously along with the host machine. Trialware and commercial (Workstation Pro) (version 11.x and above, previous versions were available for x86-32 as well)įreeware and commercial (Workstation Player) Hardware independence also means that you can run a heterogeneous mixture of operating systems and applications on a single physical computer./ 17 November 2022 4 months ago ( 17 November 2022) When coupled with the properties of encapsulation and compatibility, hardware independence gives you the freedom to move a virtual machine from one type of x86 computer to another without making any changes to the device drivers, operating system, or applications. Virtual machines on the same physical server can even run different kinds of operating systems (Windows, Linux, etc).

For example, you can configure a virtual machine with virtual components (eg, CPU, network card, SCSI controller) that are completely different from the physical components that are present on the underlying hardware. Virtual machines are completely independent from their underlying physical hardware. For example, you can move and copy a virtual machine from one location to another just like any other software file, or save a virtual machine on any standard data storage medium, from a pocket-sized USB flash memory card to an enterprise storage area networks (SANs). Encapsulation makes virtual machines incredibly portable and easy to manage. I believe I have found what I was looking for on the VMware website.Ī virtual machine is essentially a software container that bundles or “encapsulates” a complete set of virtual hardware resources, as well as an operating system and all its applications, inside a software package.
