VMware Workstation 17 and Fusion 13 are finally here

Personally, this is something I was waiting for.

VMware announced Workstation 17 and Fusion 13 are now GA.

What is VMware Workstation?

VMware Workstation is a line of Desktop Hypervisor products that let users run virtual machines, containers, and Kubernetes clusters.

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What is VMware Fusion?

VMware Fusion is a line of Desktop Hypervisor products designed for modern application developers, IT professionals and everyone that wants to run virtual machines, OCI containers and Kubernetes clusters on a Mac. Each Edition, Fusion Pro and Fusion Player, let users run Windows and other operating systems right from macOS, without rebooting. Fusion is simple enough for home users and powerful enough for IT professionals, developers and businesses.

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With some great features which I believe most IT professionals are waiting for.

VMware Workstation 17

With extended support for Microsoft Windows 11 host and guest. Workstation 17 delivered an improved Virtual Trusted Platform Module and a new ‘fast’ VM Encryption type.

A new “Auto Start” feature allows you to start a virtual machine automatically when you boot your host.

Another significant update in Linux and Windows VMs Workstation is that it now supports OpenGL 4.3 graphics.

New Guest OS Support

In addition to Windows 11, VMware added support for a plethora of new Guest Operating Systems with this release, including:

• Windows server 2022
• Ubuntu 22.04, 20.04, 22.10
• Debian 11.5, 12,
• Fedora 37, 36,
• RHEL 9
• FreeBSD 12, 13

VMware Fusion 13

On both Intel and Apple Silicon, Fusion 13 brings support for Windows 11 virtual machines. This is what I was talking about. It was really disturbing trying to work with Windows VM on Apple Silicon MAC. And this innovation done by the new encryption method to support that TPM.

On Intel Macs you’ll notice full support for Windows 11 with VMware Tools allowing for host-guest interactions like Drag & Drop, or Copy & Paste, as well as shared folders and USB and Camera device passthrough.

On Apple Silicon, VMware Tools provides virtual graphics and networking, and more is still to come. With certified and signed drivers Windows 11 looks fantastic, and adjust the resolution to 4K and beyond!
Note that Fusion on Apple Silicon must run the Arm variant of Windows 11, and it does not support the x86/Intel version of Windows.

However, for users who want to run more traditional win32 and x64 apps, Windows 11 on Arm has a built-in emulator to run those applications compiled for Intel/AMD, and as a user-level process our testing has shown us that this works ‘out of the box’.

Also, Fusion 13 ships with a single binary, one DMG, that installs on both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs, making mass deployment simple, and removing any confusion about which is the right version to run on any Mac.

Asking for a free license, VMware continues to offer free “personal use” licenses for Fusion Player and has updated our license delivery tool to provide v13 keys. If you have a v12 key, you can register for a new v13 key here: vmware.com/go/get-fusionplayer-key

You can now get Workstation 17 and Fusion 13.

Muhammad Adel

Former Nuclear Engineer | University Lecturer | Technology Advisor | Digital Transformation evangelist | FinTech | Blockchain | Podcaster | vExpert ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ | VeeamVanguard ⭐️⭐️ | Nutanix SME | MBA | AWS ABW Grant’23

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