VMware Player (Free way to run VMware and VPC VM's)

VMware Player

"What is VMware Player?
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. "

Wow, very cool. And nice move by VMware/EMC. What a great way to introduce more people to their VMware product line.

And not only are they giving VMware Player away for free, they are also providing some free, pre-built VM's to download. Red Hat, Novell/Suse, stacks from IBM, Oracle, OSS, etc...

Sure I have VPC installed and use it a bit, but there's a barrier to sharing the VPC images. There are some I'd like to share my images with who don't own VPC... Based on the VMware Player sales lit, I can now have those same people install the free Player with which they can use to access the VPC. Nice end run.

And with a free Player, I expect the number of download-able pre-built VM's to jump dramatically. I'd also bet that most/all OS/stack providers will find themselves strongly encouraged to provide VM's.

MS's counter? Continue the push to build virtualization into the OS. i.e. building VPC++ into Vista. So everyone (or maybe those buying the upper tier Vista SKU's) gets it for free and provides one more reason to upgrade to Vista (or to purchase that upper tier SKU).

Anyway, installing it now...

(via Nauman Leghari's Blog - VMware Player ... for free)

Update #1 10/23/2005 @ 12:55PM PDT:
Installed with no problem (and that's with already having VPC installed). Does require a reboot at the end.

Downloaded the VMware Browser Appliance and it fired right up, including network/internet access. And it's zippy too (but then again I have 2GB of RAM and a new model notebook so I'm sure that helps ;)

FYI, many/most of the other VM's listed require registration with the vendor and are eval versions of the OS.

Also there appears to be a bug in this beta build. I can't get it to open Virtual PC VMC's. And based on the feedback in the forums, I'm not alone... I've RTFM, such as they are, and there's doesn't seem to be anything special I'm supposed to do to open VMC's. I'll keep an eye open and keep playing...