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I tested VMware Workstation 7.1.4 for sometime and really find it very helpful. Now for better support I am searching to download the trial version of VMware workstation 8. Where can I find as there is no direct link provided on the official site. Also what is new in this version.
VMware workstation beta is not released for the public. You cannot get the trail directly. On the other hand the site has an interest form. Fill that form and wait for response from them. There is not much info available on the same.
I like Vmware 7.1. This is much better and why to spoil all the settings for upgradation. 7.1 provides you more than enough feature for an single pc. And if you have multiple usage you are trying to build an virtual host network then upgrade can work. It is said that VMware workstation 8 will surely have a lots of new features. The first addon on this is the interface of this software which will be entirely different and easy in comparison to 7.1. Anyhow I will stick with 7 for one reason. This tool is optimized for Windows 7. And that too you can use all his features like Aero 3D graphics. It does not matter either the operating system is 32 bit or 64 bit. I had faced a very low performance of windows 7 on the older version, which made more easy on this. Graphics are not an issue, because you need better hardware to run on virtualized machine. The one thing to enhance performance is that, you can manage upto 8 virtual core processors and use upto 32gb of memory per core. That is awesome. Not need drivers for printer here and easy access to Windows.
Vmware 7.1 is better for Windows XP. It is somewhat a better software than Windows XP mode. I can just see better interface enhancement, nothing more than that. And one thing which also want to tell the drag and drop convenience of file sharing.
I am waiting for release of Vmware 8. The reason are its new feature. Vmwre 7 is nice but 8 is nicer because of many additional updates. Like in this version we are going to get an better remote desktop support. This allows to manage host which are running ESX 4.x and Virtual Center. There is an single interface which enables management of many virtual machines located on the network. This is somewhat you cannot find in the older version. There is an drag and drop integration of vsphere. Your own private cloud on drag and drop features make this more functional. And obviously there will also be optimization for minimum hardware support. One thing which I heard that it is possible to share virtual machines on this version. You cannot just access the host but also manage them as single admin. You can shared resources on the host machines.
Those feature really looks better than Vmware 7. I was not aware about the same. But anyhow it is better for only those, who want to access virtual computing via web.
Those are quiet nice features mentioned. But I too agree to go with Vmware 7. There are many reason for the same. First is that it works stable. Till yet there is no major issue on my system. I can manage easily 8 virtual core cpu. Many of use not aware but we can use around 2 Tb of virtual disk on the software. This software has a better and improve version of Direct X 9.0. So that you can maximize the performance of Windows 7 and Vista. And already it comes optimized for Intel Core i3, i5, i7 processor family. What more than this you need.
Only after testing one can figure out whether this is worth or not. Till yet there are ample of bugs people faced. Once the hardware and software are properly optimized int he market things will start working.