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One year ago there were some rumors and doubts about the future of Workstation and Fusion product, due to the laying off some employees. from the related teams. But Workstation 12 has got some updates and also a 12.5 version. And now there is also a new VMware Workstation Technology Preview 2017 release!

That’s a good message and sign for a product that it’s really useful on the client part and can be a good companion of the vSphere suite (on the server and host part).

More important there are a lot of news, starting compatibility and new OS now supported:

  • Windows 10 Creator Updates Support. This latest member of Windows 10 family is now supported by VMware Workstation Tech Preview 2017, as both host and guest.
  • Other New OS Support. Workstation Tech Preview 2017 adds support of a variety of new operating systems including Ubuntu 17.04 and Fedora 26. If you are running these latest operating systems, we would like to hear your feedback on how they perform with this Tech Preview release. If you are using other OSes in Workstation Tech Preview 2017, we would also like to learn your feedback.
  • Guest VBS Support – Security is one of the most critical aspects for information technology and there is no difference in virtualization. With the new platform, we are excited to invite you to try VBS (Virtualization Based Security) within Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016 running as guest operating systems in VMware Workstation Tech Preview 2017. Guest VBS Support is still under actively development and we would like to hear your feedback such as user experience and performance.
  • UEFI Secure Boot – One of the more interesting features of vSphere 6.5 is the adoption of Secure Boot for ESXi. We are happy to announce this great security feature is also adopted by VMware Workstation Tech Preview 2017!
  • Virtual NVMe support – NVMe is becoming increasingly important in the storage market. With the new virtual hardware platform, VMware Workstation Tech Preview 2017 is able to take advantage of the NVMe (NVM Express) controller which is also supported in ESXi 6.5.

Also there are some very important features useful for your lab:

  • Network Latency Simulation – Testing software and applications with Workstation Pro is very popular because of its convenience and cost-efficiency. Now with the new Network Latency Simulation feature, along with the existing network speed and packet loss simulator, you can easily simulate a specific network environment using VMware Workstation Tech Preview 2017. Simply enable this feature by checking the new options in Network Adapter Advanced Settings.
  • IP Address Display on VM Console – You don’t have to log into your VM to check the IP and MAC addresses.  With VMware Workstation Tech Preview 2017, these information is directly displayed on your VM console. The latest VMware Tools is needed to enable this feature. Was funny that ESXi display those info since the first release and Workstation display them only now! Finally we can have those kind of info.
  • vSphere/ESXi Host Power Operation – Many users connect to vSphere ESXi and vCenter with VMware Workstation to remotely manage virtual machines. Now you can also perform power operations to ESXi hosts, including Enter/Exit maintenance mode, restart and shutdown, and directly from VMware Workstation Tech Preview 2017. Another good improvement considering that not all like the new management interfaces of vSphere, or simetimes you may have issue in browser compatibility and you need something tricky and fast to manage your hosts or your vCenter.
  • Import VCSA – VMware Workstation is the best solution to run and learn VMware datacenter products on a local machine. With improved OVF/OVA support, you can import VCSA (VMware vCenter Server Appliance) to VMware Workstation Tech Preview 2017 much easier than before. Good for labs!
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