Solved VMware Workstation Pro Free for Personal Use

OldNavy · May 14, 2024

It seems VMWare Workstation Pro is now free for personal use.
Good stuff.

cereberus · May 14, 2024

OldNavy said:
It seems VMWare Workstation Pro is now free for personal use.
Good stuff.

Link?

grumpus · May 14, 2024

cereberus said:
Link?

https://blogs.vmware.com/workstation/2024/05/vmware-workstation-pro-now-available-free-for-personal-use.html

andrew129260 · May 14, 2024

holy crap that's awesome. I will hold onto my vmware player installer file though just in case they ever pull some crap with workstation player free.

What about Workstation Player and Fusion Player Personal Use Licenses?

Users can now enjoy the full-featured versions of Workstation Pro and Fusion Pro without requiring a purchased license key. Workstation Pro and Fusion Pro installers, now by default, provide a free personal-use license built-in. While Workstation Player and Fusion Player are no longer being sold, they will continue to function and receive product updates until the next major versions are released.

For anyone curious what this means for you, these are the pro features you will now get for free:

Compare Workstation Player and Workstation Pro

web.archive.org

MisterEd · May 14, 2024

Hopefully everyone that uses the old VMWare Workstation Player migrated their old VMWare account to a Broadcom one. A few weeks ago I got an email titled "ACTION NEEDED: Migrate your VMware Support Account to Broadcom".

I followed the link and selected "VMWare Workstation Pro 17.0 for Personal Use (Windows)".
I then had to enter a bunch of personal information.
When I clicked on download arrow I got the message "Account verification is Pending. Please try after some time."
I guess I will have to wait until someone verifies my information before they let me download VMWare Workstation Pro for free.

pparks1 · May 14, 2024

MisterEd said:
Hopefully everyone that uses the old VMWare Workstation Player migrated their old VMWare account to a Broadcom one. A few weeks ago I got an email titled "ACTION NEEDED: Migrate your VMware Support Account to Broadcom".

I followed the link and selected "VMWare Workstation Pro 17.0 for Personal Use (Windows)".
I then had to enter a bunch of personal information.
When I clicked on download arrow I got the message "Account verification is Pending. Please try after some time."
I guess I will have to wait until someone verifies my information before they let me download VMWare Workstation Pro for free.

Yeah, i'm a corporate customer and I support our VMWare environment, both hypervisors at the NSX load balancer, and the whole switchover to Broadcom has been a complete and utter debacle.

My account is all screwed up and I cannot log into the support portal or raise any sev1-4 tickets with the vendor. We are looking at alternatives already. Not happy whatsoever with Broadcom.

TahitianVibes · May 15, 2024

for those who may be installing the free PRO version, read here:

VMSA-2024-0010: VMware Workstation and Fusion updates address multiple security vulnerabilities (CVE-2024-22267, CVE-2024-22268, CVE-2024-22269, CVE-2024-22270)

Support Content Notification - Support Portal - Broadcom support portal

MisterEd · May 15, 2024

I found this on Reddit...
VMware Workstation Pro, Fusion Pro free for personal use

In that thread I found a link that lead me to this...
VMware Workstation Pro, Fusion Pro free for personal use

With that link I was able to download and install VMware Workstation Pro for Personal Use

2024-05-15 08_49_12-Welcome to VMware Workstation 17.jpg

Tester · May 15, 2024

Great news! Thats it's now Free for Personal Use! One Bill Less!

Release notes from 17.5.2

Resolved Issues:

VMware NAT Service uses high CPU even with no virtual machine running
On Workstation Pro 17.5.0 and 17.5.1, vmnat.exe might have high CPU utilization even when no virtual machine is running.
This issue is resolved.
Security Issues

Took them more then 6months to fix!
Needed to replace the vmnat.exe from 17.5.0 and 17.5.1 with a downgraded one from 17.02 to get vmnat cpu stable.

andrew129260 · May 17, 2024

So after installing and using the new workstation pro, I quite like it. I like the snapshot feature a lot (which granted, I always had by just manually copying the virtual machine file somewhere, but it's nice) and the option to automatically install vmware tools on the latest version is super sweet.

I also seem to have noticed better performance, though maybe thats just a placebo as the performance was already pretty good. Though I feel like its handling ram usage better?

Anyways, glad they changed to this. I like the simplicity of the interface of player a bit more, but I like the options and features of workstation. Oddly enough, I have both still on my machine. Yet in control panel it shows I only have workstation. It said it upgraded it when I ran the workstation installer, but I can access the old player under the program files for workstation pro. Quite strange.

MisterEd · May 18, 2024

If I follow the Blog link in Post #3 and try to download VMware Workstation Pro for Personal Use (For Windows) I still get the error "Account verification is Pending. Please try after some time." Has anyone got past that?

Tester · May 18, 2024

andrew129260 said:
I like the snapshot feature a lot (which granted, I always had by just manually copying the virtual machine file somewhere,

Remember, that snapshots in production are not recommand to have constantly on-hand. As that will slow down performance in the long run. As the first disk state is frozen. It's ok for test cases, so you can test your case, then revert back, and test agian. repeat progress. Or do it before a windows updates, if that fails,revert back to snapshot. and you don't spend the time on "reverting changes back" etc.

MisterEd said:
If I follow the Blog link in Post #3 and try to download VMware Workstation Pro for Personal Use (For Windows) I still get the error "Account verification is Pending. Please try after some time." Has anyone got past that?

https://softwareupdate.vmware.com/c...re/VMware-workstation-17.5.2-23775571.exe.tar
Try the direct link. Extract the archive afterwards.

OAT · May 18, 2024

MisterEd said:
If I follow the Blog link in Post #3 and try to download VMware Workstation Pro for Personal Use (For Windows) I still get the error "Account verification is Pending. Please try after some time." Has anyone got past that?

Refresh your browser by deleting the cookies.

VMware Workstation Pro

What happened with VMware Workstation Pro? It's free now for Personal Use and i can't download latest version because VMware site not working. VMware Store Down for Maintenance As part of the transition to Broadcom systems, the store will be moving to a new domain. As a result, store will be...

www.elevenforum.com

VMware Workstation Pro

What happened with VMware Workstation Pro? It's free now for Personal Use and i can't download latest version because VMware site not working. VMware Store Down for Maintenance As part of the transition to Broadcom systems, the store will be moving to a new domain. As a result, store will be...

www.elevenforum.com

MisterEd · May 18, 2024

OAT said:
Refresh your browser by deleting the cookies.

VMware Workstation Pro

What happened with VMware Workstation Pro? It's free now for Personal Use and i can't download latest version because VMware site not working. VMware Store Down for Maintenance As part of the transition to Broadcom systems, the store will be moving to a new domain. As a result, store will be...

www.elevenforum.com

VMware Workstation Pro

What happened with VMware Workstation Pro? It's free now for Personal Use and i can't download latest version because VMware site not working. VMware Store Down for Maintenance As part of the transition to Broadcom systems, the store will be moving to a new domain. As a result, store will be...

www.elevenforum.com

I tried deleting all the cookies but that did not help. I am puzzled that this is even a problem. I would complain to Broadcom is I could find a way to do it.

I did download and install VMware Workstation Pro using the link I posted in Post #8. That seems to work but I would still like the official way to work also. Most people will only know about the Blog post and will give up when they get the error like I got.

OldMainframeGuy · May 18, 2024

I'm a very casual user of VirtualBox (I use it to run Linux Mint). Not knowing a lot about VMware, would it be worth installing Workstation? VB has its warts but I use it so little that I live with it.

OAT · May 18, 2024

OldMainframeGuy said:
I'm a very casual user of VirtualBox (I use it to run Linux Mint). Not knowing a lot about VMware, would it be worth installing Workstation? VB has its warts but I use it so little that I live with it.

I tested HyperV, VirtualBox and VMware and settled with VMware.
No sound in HyperV on some Linux distros was an issue.
I found the Oracle VM too cumbersome. Just my opinion.
I liked VMware because their configuration files are in plain text and can be modified at will. (no VM upper task bar, full screen etc)
You'll never know until you try.,

OldMainframeGuy · May 19, 2024

OAT said:
I tested HyperV, VirtualBox and VMware and settled with VMware.
No sound in HyperV on some Linux distros was an issue.
I found the Oracle VM too cumbersome. Just my opinion.
I liked VMware because their configuration files are in plain text and can be modified at will. (no VM upper task bar, full screen etc)
You'll never know until you try.,

Installed VMware Workstation; installed LinuxMint guest and can't get any sound. I'll have to fiddle with it to figure out what's wrong. Thanks for your input.

Rob

OAT · May 19, 2024

OldMainframeGuy said:
can't get any sound. I'll have to fiddle with it to figure out what's wrong.

Hey Rob,
You might have to add the hardware manually.
Of course, since the sound is obtained from the host, make sure the sound is turned up so it can pass it on to the VM.

OldMainframeGuy · May 19, 2024

OAT: Thanks for your reply; that's the setting I was using but no luck. I did some Googling and found this on Reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/archlinux/comments/y0tcvw/sound_issue_vmware_workstation_1624_win_11_22h2

On the windows 11 host go to "Sound settings" > Under "Advanced" click "More sound settings" > ("Sound" will open up) Click the "Recording" tab > Right-Click "Stereo Mix" and click Enable.

This actually fixed the problem (though I'm running Windows 10). Go figure.

Thanks for your help; appreciated!!!

Rob

andrew129260 · May 19, 2024

It is also a good idea to make sure vmware tools is installed and up to date. Workstation pro now has an option that lets you have it update automatically which is nice.