[PLUG] VMware Workstation 8 review

[JP Vossen <jp@jpsdomain.org>]

I finally got around to installing 
VMware-Workstation-Full-8.0.2-591240.x86_64.bundle.  Installation was 
easy, but I'm a bit disappointed.  It really sounded like it could run 
headless and GUI-less, and it certainly didn't install that way, and it 
doesn't really seem like it will work that way either.

I was particularly interested to see how the "remote GUI" would work. 
But as far as I can tell, you basically need more copies of Workstation 
for that [1]...  I suspect the vSphere5 client might work too, but I 
can't find that for free download and vSphere 4.1 doesn't work.  Aside 
from the cost, I don't want to install a bunch of copies of Workstation 
around and have them cluttering up the guts of other machines.  OTOH, 
Workstation is itself a client to ESX, vSphere, etc. which is great news 
for Linux folks who didn't want Windows just for that (Jeff!).

Also, while the interface is supposed to be cleaner, I think it takes a 
couple of steps backwards.  First, Workstation 7 had a nice feature that 
listed powered on machines at the top of the nav panel.  That is still 
there, but now it's a toggle between "All|Fav|On" and I think that will 
be annoying to switch around.  Second, the toolbars are less 
configurable.  I had mine set to words, since the icons are not 
intuitive to me.  That's gone.  Finally, while it is cleaner in general, 
the summary view now contains a screen-shot, which takes up a huge 
amount of room and is annoying and worthless to me.

So overall, I'm disappointed.  All the reviews I've seen have been 
great, but for me and the stuff I actually use, it's either the same or 
slightly worse.  And the stuff I really wanted (easy remote GUI console) 
is for my purposes not there. :-(

________________________________

[1] Remote access:

* 
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2005585
* 
http://vmwaremine.com/2012/01/22/vsphere-virtual-lab-setup-remote-access-to-server/

Later,
JP
----------------------------|:::======|-------------------------------
JP Vossen, CISSP            |:::======|      http://bashcookbook.com/
My Account, My Opinions     |=========|      http://www.jpsdomain.org/
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