After giving a quick preview at VMworld 2006, VMware, the market-leading x86 virtualization provider, has finally announced a new public beta version of its Workstation 6.0 software. VMware also announced that the new version would include support for Microsoft Windows Vista, both as a host and guest operating system.

The beta product appears to be focusing some of its efforts on capturing a larger segment of the software development and quality assurance market. New efforts have been made that allow the product to integrate with debugging features in Microsoft Visual Studio and the open-source Eclipse programming tools. Developers can now deploy, run and debug programs directly inside a virtual machine. In addition, Workstation now offers automated APIs (VIX API 2.0) to help developers write scripts and programs to automate virtual machine testing.

Other new interesting features added include:

• Multiple Monitor Support - The guest can now span monitors and also reflect the monitor topology which means that applications, task bars, and so on inside the guest appear as you would expect them to on a multi-monitor system. You can specify how many monitors a virtual machine can detect, regardless of how many monitors are attached to the host. This feature is especially useful if you plan to deploy the virtual machine to a different host after you create it. You can also specify what screen resolution to use and how much video memory to allocate.
  
• Automatic Update to the Latest Version of VMware Tools - You can now set VMware Tools to automatically upgrade itself when the virtual machine is powered on.
  
• Run Virtual Machines in the Background - You can now leave virtual machines and teams running in the background when you exit Workstation. On the host, a system tray icon indicates how many virtual machines are running in the background.
  
• Enhanced File Sharing and Copy and Paste Functionality - You can now use shared folders on a Solaris guest. You can copy and paste text and files between Linux and Windows hosts and Linux, Windows, and Solaris guests.
  
• Cross-Platform Drag-and-Drop Functionality - You can now drag and drop files and directories from a Linux or Windows host to a Linux, Solaris, or Windows guest, and vice versa.
  
• Virtual Machines Can Act as VNC Servers - You can set a virtual machine to act as a VNC server without having to install any specialized VNC software in the guest.
  
• Increased RAM Support - The previous limit of 4GB total RAM that could be used for all virtual machines combined has been removed. The amount of memory used by all virtual machines combined is now limited only by the amount of the host computer's RAM and page file size. The maximum amount of memory that can be allocated per virtual machine has been raised from 3.6GB to 8GB.
  
• Support for Paravirtualized Linux Kernels - If you have a VMware VMI (Virtual Machine Interface) 3.0 enabled kernel in a Linux guest operating system, you can now enable paravirtual support in the virtual machine.
  
• Support for High-Speed USB 2.0 Devices
  

• 32-bit and 64-bit Windows Vista as host and guest operating systems
  
• 32-bit and 64-bit Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.5 (Beta, formerly called 4.0 Update 5) and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.0 (Beta) as host and guest operating systems
  
• 32-bit and 64-bit SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 SP4 (Beta) as host and guest operating systems
  
• 32-bit and 64-bit Solaris 10 Update 3 as guest operating system
  

• 32-bit and 64-bit Ubuntu Linux 6.10 as host and guest operating systems
  
• 32-bit and 64-bit Mandriva Linux 2007 as host and guest operating systems
  
• 32-bit Novell Netware 6.5 SP5 as guest operating system
  

You can register for the open beta program, here.

Posted by David Marshall on December 30, 2006 06:16 AM