Version |
Release date |
Significant changes |
1.0[8] |
15 May 1999 |
First release |
1.0.1[8] |
14 June 1999 |
- Added support of Linux kernel 2.3.x
|
1.0.2[8] |
25 June 1999 |
|
1.0.3[8] |
20 July 1999 |
- New product logo and icons
|
1.1 for Linux[17] |
11 October 1999 |
First Linux release
- Added support of Windows 2000
- Added support of bidirectional parallel ports
- Added support of Linux kernel 2.2.10
- Improved support for raw disk file configuration via the Configuration Wizard and Editor
- Improved support for upgrading Linux kernels and for uninstalling the product
- Experimental support for RPM installations
- Improved SMP performance in Linux kernel versions 2.2.8 and later
- Improved built-in help
|
1.1.1 for Linux[17] |
18 October 1999 |
|
1.1.2 for Linux[17] |
13 November 1999 |
- Changes in the handling of virtual disks
|
1.0.1 for Windows[18] |
15 November 1999 |
|
2.0[19] |
3 March 2000 |
- Increased desktop performance
- Added support of memory and power user changes in Windows 2000
- Improved upgrade to new VMware Workstation releases
- Limited SCSI support for disks and CD-ROM devices
- Added support for suspending the virtual machine to disk
- Added support for shrinking the virtual disks
- Added support of floppy disk images
- Added support of serial connections
- Added support of sound input and improved sound output
- Added support for disconnecting, modifying and editing the removable devices while the virtual machine is running
- Improved support for raw disks
- Experimental support of plain disks
|
2.0.1[19] |
19 June 2000 |
|
2.0.2[19] |
1 August 2000 |
|
2.0.3[19] |
2 November 2000 |
- Improved mouse performance
- Added support for wheel mouse
- Added support for installation of SVGA driver in a Windows Me guest machines
|
2.0.4[19] |
21 May 2001 |
- Added support of Red Hat Linux 7.1 and SUSE Linux 7.1
- Increased default memory size of a Linux virtual machine to 64 MB
- Added support of Pentium 4 processors
- Added support for Windows 2000 hosts with CD-ROM drives configured for digital audio
|
3.0[20] |
11 November 2001 |
- Added support of reading DVD discs
- Added support of reading enhanced CD discs in the raw access mode
|
3.1[21] |
29 March 2002 |
|
3.1.1[22] |
9 April 2002 |
|
3.2[23] |
16 September 2002 |
|
4.0[24] |
7 April 2003 |
Single snapshots |
4.5[25] |
15 March 2004 |
Last version for Windows NT 4.0 on hosts |
5.0[26] |
7 April 2005 |
- Multiple snapshots
- Linked clones
- Teams
|
5.5[27] |
29 November 2005 |
- Introduced support of Intel VT-x/AMD-V virtualization instructions, as well as x86-64 and multi-processor virtual machines[28]
|
6.0[29] |
9 May 2007 |
- Multiple monitor support
- Background virtual machines
- High-speed USB devices (EHCI)
|
6.5[30] |
23 September 2008 |
- Final version to support CPUs without PAE[31]
- Record Replay[32]
- Unicode
- Unity mode
- Last version for Windows 2000 on hosts
|
7.0[33] |
10 October 2009 |
- Replay Debugging (improved Record Replay)[34]
|
7.1[35] |
25 May 2010 |
|
8.0[36] |
14 September 2011 |
- Shared Virtual Machines
- Workstation 8 is the first version that requires an x64-compatible CPU.
- Replay Debugging removed[37]
|
9.0[38] |
23 August 2012 |
|
10.0[39] |
3 September 2013 |
|
10.0.1[40] |
24 October 2013 |
- Improved compatibility with some AMD Piledriver CPUs
- Easy Install support for Windows 8.1 RTM and Windows Server 2012 R2 RTM
- Fixes for certain hangs and freezes
|
10.0.2[41] |
17 April 2014 |
- The compatibility and performance of USB audio and video devices with virtual machines has been improved.
- Resolved an issue that prevents a USB device from being connected to Linux RHEL 5 guest operating system.
- Easy installation option supports Windows 8.1 Update 1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 as a guest operating system.
- openSUSE 13.1 is now supported as a host operating system.
- Resolved an issue causing burning CDs with Blu-ray drives to fail while connected to the virtual machine.
- Resolved an issue that caused using Microsoft Word and Excel in unity mode causes a beep.
- Resolved an issue causing host application windows to be blanked out in the UAC dialog on the Linux host of the Windows 8 virtual machine.
- Resolved an issue that prevented the Sound Card from being automatically added to the VM when powering on the virtual machine on a Linux host.
- Resolved an issue that could cause a Windows 8.1 guest operating system to display a black screen when launching Metro style applications in the launch menu.
- Resolved a hotkey conflict in the Preference dialog of the KVM mode.
- Resolved a compatibility issue of GL renderer with some new Nvidia drivers.
- Resolved graphics errors with for Solidworks applications.
- Resolved an issue causing virtual machines imported from a physical PC to crash on startup.
- Resolved an issue about shared folder when the user read and write file using two threads.
- Resolved an issue that caused Linux virtual machines to see stale file contents when using shared folders.
- Resolved the virtual machine performance issues when using the E1000e adapter.
- Resolved an issue preventing Workstation from starting on Ubuntu 14.04.
|
10.0.3[42] |
1 July 2014 |
|
10.0.4[43] |
30 October 2014 |
- Fixes memory issue in Workstation on Microsoft Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012.
|
10.0.5[44] |
27 January 2015 |
- Bug fixes
- At power-on, a virtual machine hangs and a .dmp file is created.
- The VideoReDo application does not display the video properly and parts of the application's screen are scrambled.
- Copying and pasting a large file from host to guest may fail.
- Memory leak in the HGFS server (for shared folders) causes VMware Tools to crash randomly with the error: Exception 0xc0000005 (access violation) has occurred.
- New VMs have the same location UUID and MAC address so that the UUID and MAC address are not unique. This problem occurs with WS 9 and WS 10 VMs but not WS 7 and WS 8 VMs.
- On RHEL 6.6, vmmon cannot be loaded due to incompatible kernel symbol versions. With gcc, kernel-headers, kernel-devel installed, vmmon module will be recompiled automatically.
- Memory leak by the process vmtoolsd.exe when the guest NIC is disabled causes memory consumption by Workstation processes to increase over time.
- When USB devices are autoconnected with a hub to a Renesas host controller, the devices are not redirected to the guest.
- WS 11 license is accepted by WS 10.0.5 and future 10.0 updates.
- When WS is installed on Linux in a non-default location, the Virtual Network Editor fails to run.
|
10.0.6[45] |
5 May 2015 |
- Fixed a problem when uploading a virtual machine with Workstation 10.0.x to ESXi 6.0.
|
10.0.7[46] |
2 July 2015 |
|
11.0[47] |
1 December 2014 |
|
11.1[48] |
17 February 2015 |
- Added support for VMware vCloud Air Virtual Private Cloud OnDemand
- Bug fixes:
- A Linux guest OS booted on EFI firmware sometimes failed to respond to the keyboard and mouse if any mouse motion occurred during a short window of time during OS boot.
- Outlook 2010 would occasionally crash when running in Unity mode.
- You could not compact or defragment a persistent disk.
- The UI sometimes crashed when a user copied and pasted a file between two Windows guests.
- Rendering corruption in UI elements in Fedora 20 guests with 3D enabled.
- When creating a new virtual machine with SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLE) 12, the Easy Install path was not available.
|
11.1.1[49] |
9 June 2015 |
- Critical security fix for CVE-2012-0897, CVE-2015-2336, CVE-2015-2337, CVE-2015-2338, CVE-2015-2339, CVE-2015-2340, CVE-2015-2341
- VMware Workstation and Horizon Client TPView.ddl and TPInt.dll incorrectly handle memory allocation. On Workstation, this may allow a guest to execute code or perform a Denial of Service on the Windows OS that runs Workstation.
|
11.1.2[50] |
15 June 2015 |
- Security Issues
- VMware Workstation 11.1.2 has been updated to OpenSSL library version openssl-1.0.1m.
- Bug Fixes
- Two interface items on the Access Control screen used the same hot-key combination.
- Attempting to suspend a Windows virtual machine with the Sensor Diagnostic Tool running caused the virtual machine to become unresponsive.
- Using audio conferencing software on a Windows 8 guest operating system caused a severe echo during both video and audio calls.
- On the Windows 95 guest operating system, the mouse cursor jumped.
- Symbolic links created within a Windows guest operating system on a Linux host did not list files under subdirectories.
- Workstation did not display Regions in the VMware vCloud Air Subscription node.
- Workstation could not automatically detect the Fedora 21 ISO when creating a new Fedora 21 virtual machine.
- Under specific conditions, when the alipaybsm.exe file was installed on the Workstation host, network service was disrupted.
- After connecting to vCloud Air from Workstation, no virtual machines were listed in the Workstation virtual machine library.
- Using Easy Install for the Ubuntu 15.04 guest operating system with kernel 3.19.0-15-generic prevented you from enabling folder sharing.
- Reverting to a snapshot failed following a specific set of steps.
- A Windows 10 guest operating system running idly caused Workstation to crash.
- Using the Easy Install option to install the Ubuntu 14.04 or Ubuntu 15.04 guest operating system failed to install VMware Tools.
|
12.0.0 Pro[51] |
24 August 2015 |
The following features have reached end of life in Workstation 12 Pro and have been removed:[52]
- Unity mode on Linux guest and host operating systems
- Virtual Debugger Visual Studio
- Connection to the VMware vCloud Air subscription service
Added support for, amongst other things:
- Later operating system versions, including Windows 10
- DirectX 10 and OpenGL 3.3
- IPv6 NAT
|
12.0.1 Pro[53] |
29 October 2015 |
|
12.1.0 Pro[54] |
8 December 2015 |
12.1.1 Pro[55][56] |
21 April 2016 |
12.5 Pro[57][56] |
13 September 2016 |
- The announced[58] release date of 8 September 2016[59] was missed due to a nasty bug
- Compatible with Windows 10 Anniversary Update (v1607)
|
12.5.1 Pro[60] |
27 October 2016 |
Bug fixes, security updates for undisclosed vulnerabilities and performance improvements. |
12.5.2 Pro[61] |
13 November 2016 |
This release of VMware Workstation 12 Pro addresses an out-of-bounds memory access vulnerability related to the drag-and-drop feature. This may allow a guest to execute code on the operating system that runs VMware Workstation 12 Pro. |
12.5.3 Pro[62] |
9 March 2017 |
Bug fixes, security updates, and performance improvements.
- Workstation Pro fails to launch on a Linux platform that uses kernel 4.9.0
- Occasionally, the Workstation Pro user interface crashes in Workstation 12 Pro version 12.5 and displays an error
- When you use a USB device that does not follow USB specifications in a virtual machine in USB passthrough mode, the guest becomes unusable
- You cannot connect a parallel port to a virtual machine
- Connecting an Active Braille device to the virtual machines fails
- After users execute Active FTP in the guest operating system, the vmnat.exe process continues to use a TCP port of the host
- ThinPrint technology does not work in a Windows XP guest operating system with VMware Tools 10.0.10
- VMware Tools service is not started in Ubuntu 16.10 guest
- You cannot use shared folders in a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.3 virtual machine
|
12.5.4 Pro[63] |
14 March 2017 |
This release addresses an out-of-bounds memory access vulnerability related to the drag-and-drop feature. This vulnerability might allow a guest to execute code on the operating system that runs VMware Workstation 12 Pro. |
12.5.5 Pro[64] |
28 March 2017 |
This release of VMware Workstation Pro addresses the following issues:
- VMware Workstation Pro has a heap buffer overflow and uninitialized stack memory usage in SVGA. These issues might allow a guest virtual machine to execute code on the host. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the identifiers CVE-2017-4902 (heap issue) and CVE-2017-4903 (stack issue) to these issues.
- The VMware Workstation Pro XHCI driver has uninitialized memory usage. This issue might allow a guest virtual machine to execute code on the host. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the identifier CVE-2017-4904 to this issue.
- VMware Workstation Pro has uninitialized memory usage. This issue might lead to an information leak. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the identifier CVE-2017-4905 to this issue.
|
12.5.6 Pro[65] |
18 May 2017 |
This release includes the following highlights:
- Day 0 support of the Windows 10 Creators Update (v1703)
- Bug fixes and security updates
|
12.5.7 Pro[66] |
22 June 2017 |
This release of VMware Workstation Pro includes some bug fixes and security updates. |
12.5.8 Pro[67] |
16 November 2017 |
Support added for:
- RHEL 7.4
- Oracle Linux 7.3
|
12.5.9 Pro[68] |
10 January 2018 |
- This update of VMware Workstation Pro exposes hardware support for branch target injection mitigation to VMware guests. This hardware is used by some guest operating systems to mitigate CVE-2018-5715 (also called by the name "Spectre").
|
14.0.0 Pro[69] |
26 September 2017 |
This major version release includes the following highlights:
- Updated to support the newest versions of Microsoft Windows 10 (including Enterprise), and Windows Server editions, as well as various Linux distributions
- Updated support for the latest Intel and AMD processors and limited or no support for pre-2011 CPUs
- Improved virtual firmware support, such as UEFI, and new Secure Boot support
- Support for Virtualization Based Security (VBS)
- Improved Virtual Networking
- New and improved support and controls for working with vSphere and the vCenter Server Appliance
- Network latency simulator
- New remote vSphere controls
- Last version for Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 on hosts
|
14.1.0 Pro[70] |
21 December 2017 |
- This release delivers improved guest support of Windows 10 Fall Creators Update (v1709)
|
14.1.1 Pro[71] |
9 January 2018 |
- This update of VMware Workstation Pro exposes hardware support for branch target injection mitigation to VMware guests. This hardware is used by some guest operating systems to mitigate CVE-2018-5715 (also called by the name "Spectre").
|
14.1.2 Pro[72] |
21 May 2018 |
- This update delivers guest access to the SSBD feature in IA32_SPEC_CTRL.
- This release delivers improved guest support of Windows 10 Spring Creators Update (v1803)
- Ubuntu 18.04 support as host and guest
|
14.1.3 Pro[73] |
14 August 2018 |
14.1.4 Pro[74] |
11 September 2018 |
- VMware Workstation Pro has an uninitialized stack memory usage vulnerability in the vmxnet3 virtual network adapter that might allow a guest to execute code on the host. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the identifier CVE-2018-6981 to this issue.
|
14.1.5 Pro[75] |
23 November 2018 |
- VMware Workstation Pro contains an integer overflow vulnerability in the virtual network devices which may allow a guest to execute code on the host. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the identifier CVE-2018-6983 to this issue.
|
14.1.6 Pro[76] |
14 March 2019 |
This release of VMware Workstation Pro addresses the following issues:
- Workstation does not handle paths appropriately. This may allow the path to the VMX executable, on a Windows host, to be hijacked by a non-administrator leading to elevation of privilege. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the identifier CVE-2019-5511 to this issue.
- COM classes are not handled appropriately. This may allow hijacking of COM classes used by the VMX process, on a Windows host, leading to elevation of privilege. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the identifier CVE-2019-5512 to this issue.
|
14.1.7 Pro[77] |
29 March 2019 |
- Workstation contains an out-of-bounds read/write vulnerability and a Time-of-check Time-of-use (TOCTOU) vulnerability in the virtual USB UHCI (Universal Host Controller Interface). These issues may allow a guest to execute code on the host. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the identifiers CVE-2019-5518 (out-of-bounds read/write) and CVE-2019-5519 (TOCTOU) to these issues.
|
14.1.8 Pro[78] |
12 November 2019 |
This release of VMware Workstation Pro addresses the following issue:
- VMware Workstation Pro and Player versions 14.x and earlier failed to launch on Windows 10 1903 after Windows 10 KB updates were applied.
|
15.0.0 Pro[79] |
24 September 2018 |
This major version release includes the following highlights:
- Support for new Microsoft Windows 10 builds (including Enterprise) as well as various Linux distributions
- 4K resolution.
- DirectX 10.1.
- Shared graphics memory limit increased to 3 GB.
- RESTful API to automate common virtual machine tasks using standard JSON over HTTP/HTTPS.
- This version adds new Hosts and Clusters view when connect to remote vSphere.
- USB devices can be connected automatically to a powered on virtual machine.
- SSH login to Linux virtual machine.
- Guest display stretch.
- Wayland protocol.
- Improves performance for virtual NVMe storage.
|
15.0.1 Pro[80] |
9 November 2018 |
- Support for the new versions of various Linux distributions.
- Bug fixes and security updates.
|
15.0.2 Pro[81] |
22 November 2018 |
|
15.0.3 Pro[82] |
14 March 2019 |
- Bug fixes and security updates.
|
15.0.4 Pro[83] |
29 March 2019 |
- Bug fixes and security updates.
|
15.1.0 Pro[84] |
14 May 2019 |
- Support for new guest operating systems
- Guest display can be stretched for all guests running on Windows hosts.
- Bug fixes and security updates
|
15.5.0 Pro[85] |
19 September 2019 |
- Support for new guest operating systems
- Virtual networks with configurable MTU up to 9 000 bytes
- Allows to save network settings after upgrades and to import and export network configurations
- VMware Paravirtual SCSI Controllers (PVSCSI)
- Open Virtual Machine Tools (
open-vm-tools ), previously known as VMWare Tools, is made default for applicable Linux guests in this version
- Bug fixes and security updates.
|
15.5.1 Pro[86] |
12 November 2019 |
- Bug fixes and security updates
|
15.5.2 Pro[87] |
12 March 2020 |
15.5.5 Pro[88] |
28 May 2020 |
- VMware Workstation 15.5.5 now runs on Windows hosts with Hyper-V features (For example: virtualization based security) enabled.
- Support for new guest operating systems
- Bug fixes and security updates
|
15.5.6 Pro[89] |
9 June 2020 |
- Bug fixes and security updates
|
15.5.7 Pro[90] |
19 November 2020 |
- Bug fixes and security updates
- Last version for Windows 7 on hosts
|
16.0 Pro[91] |
15 September 2020 |
This major version release includes the following highlights:
- Support for new guest operating systems
- DirectX 11 and OpenGL 4.1
- USB 3.2 Gen 2 controller (up to 10 Gbit/s)
- VMs up to 32 virtual CPUs, 128 GB RAM and 8 GB VRAM
- Dark Mode in Windows 10
- vSphere 7.0 compatibility
- VMs security enhanced by removing graphics render from vmx and running it as a separate sandbox process
- Improves file transfer speeds (drag and drop, copy and paste), VMs shutdown time and virtual NVMe storage performance
- Improves accessibility (compliant with WCAG 2.1 criteria)
- The deprecation of shared VMs and restricted VMs features
- Bug fixes
|
16.1.0 Pro[92] |
19 November 2020 |
- Support for new guest operating systems
vctl kind updated to support Kubernetes IN Docker v0.9.0
- Docker Machine VMware Driver (
docker-machine-driver-vmware )
- Bug fixes
|
16.1.1 Pro[93] |
1 April 2021 |
- Bug fixes
- VMNet driver related security improvements
|
16.1.2 Pro[94] |
17 May 2021 |
|
16.2.0 Pro[95] |
14 October 2021 |
- Added support for Vulkan renderer on a Linux host with Intel, Nvidia, and AMD GPUs
- Added partial support for Windows 11 as host or guest machines[96]
- Host GPUs that do not support DirectX feature level 11.1 are supported but deprecated[97]
- Host CPUs that do not support Mode-based Execution Control are supported but deprecated
- Security updates and bug fixes
|
16.2.1 Pro[98] |
9 November 2021 |
|
16.2.2 Pro[99] |
18 January 2022 |
|
16.2.3 Pro[100] |
10 March 2022 |
|
16.2.4 Pro[101] |
21 July 2022 |
|
16.2.5 Pro[102] |
7 December 2022 |
|
17.0 Pro[103] |
17 November 2022 |
- Support for new guest operating systems
- New auto-start virtual machine feature
- New virtual Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0
- New full or fast encryption features
- Support for OpenGL 4.3 and WDDM 1.2
- Bug fixes
|
17.0.1 Pro[104] |
2 February 2023 |
- Security updates and bug fixes
|
17.0.2 Pro[105] |
25 April 2023 |
- Security updates and bug fixes
|
17.5 Pro[106] |
19 October 2023 |
- Support for up to 256 NVMe devices (4 controllers and 64 devices per controller)
- Support for NVMe 1.3
- Upgraded encryption algorithm from CBC to XTS
- New
VMRUN command line utility for controlling virtual machines
- Support for importing or exporting virtual machines with vTPM device
- Support for managing power operations of encrypted virtual machines using VMREST API
- Security updates and bug fixes
|
17.5.1 Pro[107] |
27 February 2024 |
- Fixed CVE-2024-22251 vulnerability
|
17.5.2 Pro[108] |
14 May 2024 |
- Copyrights of program now link to Broadcom, VMware LLC's new owner
- Introduced commercial and personal use subscriptions licensing model. For personal use, a product key won't be required
- Workstation Player was discontinued as Workstation Pro became free for personal use[15]
- Fixed CVE-2024-22267, CVE-2024-22268, CVE-2024-22269, and CVE-2024-22270 vulnerabilities
- Last version for Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows Server 2016 on hosts
|
17.6 Pro[109] |
3 September 2024 |
- Support for new guest operating systems
- New
vmcli command line utility for directly interacting with the hypervisor from a Linux or macOS terminal, or the Windows command prompt
Removed features:
- Legacy operating systems Tools ISOs omitted from program download (still available for separate download)
- Bluetooth hub pass-through
- Physical parallel port pass-through
- Unity mode
- Enhanced keyboard driver
|
17.6.1 Pro[110] |
10 October 2024 |
|
17.6.2 Pro[111] |
17 December 2024 |
- Bug fixes
- Introduced a free licensing model for commercial, education, and personal use
|
17.6.3 Pro[112] |
4 March 2025 |
- Fixed CVE-2025-22224 and CVE-2025-22226 vulnerabilities
- Bug fixes
|