VMware Workstation 17.6.1 Pro Release Notes

I had skipped VMware Workstation 17.6 because posts on Reddit said they experienced screen tearing with 3D GUI support and downgraded to 17.5. Since 17.6.1 came out today I thought I’d try it, and no issues so far in my Ubuntu 22.04 Gnome 3.44 VM (my desktop is Windows 10 for games, but all my normal computing is in GNU/Linux virtual machines which insulate you from Windows malware with some malware shutting down when it sees it’s in a VM). Of course, under Broadcom now you have to go to their portal and manually download and install as automatic updating doesn’t work. But on the positive, VMware Workstation is free for personal use since they didn’t want to support VMware Player any longer. And VMware Workstation is still better for 3D support than VirtualBox per my last experience with it, though a Reddit post said VMware Workstation is still not working for newer GNU/Linux versions due to kernel, but I’m running the latest Xanmod kernels on my VMs just fine (GNU/Linux kernel 6.11.2), though I did have issues with 3D support not working with newer GNU/Linux versions previously, so I suspect it might be the newer desktop environments in relation to the Open VMware Tools package in the repository that adds 3D GUI support to your guest virtual machine, as I don’t install their proprietary version into my guest OS. Maybe when I get motivated, I’ll install a newer GNU/Linux distribution and see if I have issues with 3D GUI support.

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Workstation-Pro/17.6.1/rn/vmware-workstation-1761-pro-release-notes/index.html

Updated on10/10/2024

VMware Workstation Pro 17.6.1 | 10 OCT 2024 | Build 24319023 Check for additions and updates to these release notes.

What’s in the Release Notes

About VMware Workstation Pro

VMware Workstation Pro™ enables technical professionals to develop, test, demonstrate, and deploy software by running multiple x86-based Windows, Linux, and other operating systems simultaneously on the same PC.

You can replicate server, desktop, and tablet environments in a virtual machine and allocate multiple processor cores, gigabytes of main memory, and graphics memory to each virtual machine, whether the virtual machine resides on a personal PC or on a private enterprise cloud. You can download VMware Workstation 17.6.1 Pro from here.

For more information, see the VMware Workstation Pro documentation.

System Requirements

  • A compatible 64-bit x86/AMD64 CPU launched in 2011 or later.
  • Please refer to the vendor’s recommended processor requirements for specific Host Operating Systems (HOS):
    • For Microsoft-specific HOS, refer to the Microsoft documentation
    • For Linux-specific HOS, refer to the Linux Vendor-specific documentation

What’s New

VMware Workstation 17.6.1 Pro provides various bug fixes requested by customers.

Prior Releases

Features and Known Issues from prior releases of VMware Workstation 17 Pro are described in the release notes for each release. To view the release notes for a prior release, click the appropriate link:

Known Issues

  • The multi-monitor feature might not work correctly in specific topologiesIn specific situations, based on different hardware and topologies, the multi-monitor feature does not work as expected. You might see issues like reverting the topology to a single screen, or not cycling through monitors.Workaround: None.

Resolved Issues

  • When creating a new virtual machine from an ISO image file, VMware Workstation does not recognize Windows 11 24H2 If you create a virtual machine from a Windows 11242 ISO image file, VMware Workstation recognizes a Windows Server 2025 iso file instead.
  • Powering on a virtual machine fails with VMware Workstation 17.6 - unrecoverable error: (svga) svga Exception 0xc0000005 errorPowering on a virtual machine with the 3D graphics feature deactivated and activated Allow hardware acceleration for all virtual machine consoles from the VMware Workstation preferences fails with VMware Workstation 17.6 - unrecoverable error: (svga) svga Exception 0xc0000005 error.
  • Cannot install or upgrade VMware Workstation 17.6 on a non-English host systemIf you try to install or upgrade VMware Workstation on a host system in a different locale than English, an MSI pop-up error appears.
  • CentOS 9 Stream with kernel versions later than 5.14.0-432 is not supported on Workstation Pro 17.6 as a hostCentOS 9 Stream with kernel versions later than 5.14.0-432 is not supported on Workstation Pro 17.6 as a host.