VMware Workstation Player vs VMware Workstation Pro
Here you will find out:
- VMware Workstation Pro vs VMware workstation Player difference
- when DiskInternals can help you
Are you ready? Let's read!
VMware Workstation Pro vs VMware workstation Player
VMware is an excellent virtualization solution that has enterprise-level VMware vSphere products (like ESXi). There are also custom virtualization applications, VMware Workstation Player and VMware Workstation Pro (also known as VMware Workstation), which will be discussed now. VMware Player and VMware Workstation are type 2 hypervisors that are installed on the host operating system running on a physical computer.
However, some differences may affect your choice.
VMware Workstation Player vs Pro: Requirements
In terms of requirements, there is no disagreement between these applications; the basic requirements are the same.
- 1. CPU Processors should be released no earlier than 2011, since support for Intel VT-x or AMD-V is required. In addition, it must be a 64-bit processor with a core frequency of 1.3 GHz or higher.
- 2. Disk space. The installation of the application requires about 1 - 1.2 GB of free disk space. VMware Player 15 uses slightly less disk space after installation.
- 3. RAM. The recommendations say that 2 GB of memory may be enough, but experience suggests that 4 GB or more will be the best option. Since the correct operation of your host OS depends on a sufficient amount of memory, the host operating system requires a 64-bit Linux or Windows distribution with a graphical user interface (GUI).
VMware Workstation Player vs Pro: OS guest support
There are also no special differences between VMware Player and VMware Workstation Pro. You can save yourself a list of the most common guest OSs:
- For Linux: based on Debian (Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Mint), Mandriva, based on Red Hat (Red Hat, CentOS, Oracle, Linux, TurboLinux), SUSE (Open SUSE, SLES), etc.
- For Windows: Windows 3.1, NT, Millennium, 8, 8.1, 10; Windows Server 2000, 2003, 2008, 2012, 2016.
- Solaris 10 and 11.
- FreeBSD
- MS-DOS
- VMware ESXi
VMware Workstation Pro vs Player: Limits
In both VMware Workstation Player and VMware Workstation Pro, you are free to create powerful virtual machines (64 GB RAM, 16 virtual processors, and 3 GB VRAM).
If the guest OS has a 32-bit architecture, it cannot use more than 4 GB of RAM in most cases - this is one of the limitations of the 32-bit architecture.
However, the 32-bit version of Windows Server 2003 may bypass this restriction due to PAE, but the memory for running applications will be limited.
The functions that are available in VMware Workstation Pro are also listed below, but it is impossible to use them in VMware Player:
- Automatic protection allows you to automatically create snapshots of a virtual machine. At the same time, you can select the time intervals for creating pictures when the virtual machine is turned on.
- Guest Isolation. You can enable or disable this function while using the drag and drop function from the host to the guest, and vice versa. If you want to enable the guest isolation feature, then the guest OS must have VMware Tools.
- VNC connections allow you to remotely connect your virtual machine to a VNC client without installing a server. The VNC client must be installed on the computer where the VM is located.
VMware Workstation Player vs Pro: VM snapshots
Snapshots of a virtual machine is a great idea that allows you to save the state of a virtual machine (with all configurations) at the right time. If necessary, you can return to the state of this virtual machine after making changes to the virtual machine. When a snapshot is created, a separate virtual differential disk is created, and all subsequent changes are written to this separate virtual disk. However, this does not mean that snapshots will replace backups. In any case, these are completely different things.
- VMware Workstation Pro can delight you with the snapshot feature.
To do this, go to the graphical interface and select the VM button, then click on Snapshot -> Take Snapshot. It is possible to create several snapshots, and you can delete them if necessary. However, you need to be prepared that a large number of images can reduce the performance of the VM. You can view images in the Image Manager.
- VMware Workstation Player does not support snapshots.
Here, if something went wrong, you can just make copies of the necessary data just in case.
VMFS Recovery for VM snapshots repair
DiskInternals VMFS Recovery is an application that helps to recover hopelessly lost VMDK files - snapshot from damaged and faulty virtual disks. The recommended utility automatically checks the status of the VMware VMFS data storage and volumes, then reads the VMFS structures where possible and restores them. All found data is viewed for free using the Preview option. If you are not confident in your abilities, you can simply use the Recovery Wizard and simply follow its instructions until the end of the process.
Detailed instructions for DiskInternals VMFS Recovery are included:
Download and install the application on your computer.
Open it and connect via SSH.
Then left-click to open the disk and activate the disk scanning process.
Select VMDK necessary files and mount them.
Browse all the results, as prepared, and view for free.
After that, having bought a license for VMFS Recovery, you will be provided with a unique license key. Now, you have everything to start exporting data.