VMware Player
by Volker Weber
VMware Player is free software that enables PC users to easily run any virtual machine on a Windows or Linux PC. VMware Player runs virtual machines created by VMware Workstation, GSX Server or ESX Server and also supports Microsoft virtual machines and Symantec LiveState Recovery disk formats.
You can get pre-configured virtual machines to evaluate software like IBM Workplace Services Express, Oracle Database 10g, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and Novell Linux Desktop. The most interesting one may be the browser appliance:
The Browser Appliance enables you to safely browse the Internet from within a VMware virtual machine -- protecting your host PC from spyware and malware.
Comments
This is a smart and clever move. I like it.
So, basically you can
- download VMware Workstation (for free)
- get a 30-day trial key for it
- during this period, create a virtual machine (which is the most important thing VMware Player can't do)
- remove VMware Workstation (as the evaluation has expired)
- use the virtual machine with VMware Player (which is free)
without getting any trouble.
Right?
Geiz ist geil ;-)
However, you cannot use the pre-configured virtual machines with an older version of VMware, such as the c´t edition 4.5.2. As you may not install the VMware player on system with VMware 4.5.2 installed, and - I guess - probably also not VMware 5, the only way is to try out the pre-configured virtual machines inside another VMware 4.5.2 virtual machine. Freaky!
