VMWare Workstation 4

asp:review

VMWare Workstation 4

By Michael Riley

Brian Noyes recently reviewed VMWareWorkstation 3.2. Rather than duplicate Brian's comments, I'll focus strictlyon the new version's enhancements. Six major improvements have been added tothe Windows version: Snapshots, Shared Folders, Tab Between VMs, Full Debugmode, support for more operating systems, and improved sound and video supportwithin the hosted environment.

Snapshots are even better than Microsoft's System Restorefeature in Windows XP because the entire state of the machine is frozen intime. This is an amazing enhancement that will shave countless hours of VMrebuilds or bulky backups of minor driver tweaks within the VMd OS. Gone arethe days of copying a 2 GB VM simply to test a DLL.

Shared Folders finally allow drag-and-drop of documentsand files between the host desktop and the hosted VM desktop. You no longerneed to create network drive shares simply to copy between the host and VM,which is another seamless timesaver.

Another interface improvement is the ability to tabbetween multiple running VMs. In the past, each VM needed its own instance ofVMWare to run. Now you can group them together and tab from one to anothereasily with the click of the mouse. No more hunting around the desktopwondering which VM is running a server and which VM is testing the clientapplication response.

Probably my favorite new feature is VMWare's ability touse debuggers within the hosted VM. You now can rely on the behavior of the VMto act like an actual, physical PC right down to the CPU hardware registers! Iapplaud VMWare's engineers for pulling off this seemingly magical improvement.

In addition to the numerous flavors of Linux and Windows,VMWare Workstation 4 also provides full support for Windows Server 2003 and RedHat 8.0. Finally, the audio and video improvements have made it possible toplay back audio content and even streaming video without frame tearing orskipping, which is great for testing Macromedia Flash, RealVideo, and WindowsMedia content on different OS configurations.

VMWare has added exceptional value to its latestWorkstation release. Any .NET developer who hasn't purchased an earlier VMWarerelease should seriously consider making an investment in Workstation 4.Existing VMWare users can upgrade for $99, which is a fair price if you're afrequent user of earlier releases.

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Web Site: http://www.vmware.com/products/desktop/ws_features.html

Price: Startsat US$299