Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
VMware Workstation 7.0.1 build-227600

I had heard VMware Workstation 7.1 was released.  Unfortunately, the VMware Workstation “check for updates” feature doesn’t seem to be serving its intended purpose as it told me no updates were available.

I downloaded the installation package manually and performed the upgrade.  Two reboots were required:

1. After the uninstall of my previous version of Workstation
2. After the install of Workstation 7.1

I hope the usability experience is better than my upgrade experience.  I realize some of the reboot business is on the Microsoft Windows 7 operating system but come on, would someone please figure this out?  Is there no way to perform an in place upgrade of Workstation to minimize the reboots to one?

What’s New in VMware Workstation 7.1

•Support for 8 virtual processors (or 8 virtual cores) and 2 TB virtual disks.

•Support for OpenGL 2.1 for Windows Vista and Windows 7 guests.

•Greatly improved DirectX 9.0 graphics performance for Windows Vista and Windows 7 guests. Up to 2x faster than Workstation 7.

•Launch virtualized applications directly from the Windows 7 taskbar to create a seamless experience between applications in your virtual machines and the desktop.

•Optimized performance for Intel’s Core i3, i5, i7 processor family for faster virtual machine encryption and decryption.

•Support for more Host and Guest Operating Systems, including: Hosts: Windows 2008 R2, Ubuntu 10.04, RHEL 5.4, and more Guests: Fedora 12, Ubuntu 10.04, RHEL 5.4, SEL 11 SP1, and more.

•Now includes built in Automatic Updates feature to check, download, and install VMware Workstation updates.

•Ability to import and export Open Virtualization Format (OVF 1.0) packaged virtual machines and upload directly to VMware vSphere, the industry’s best platform for building cloud infrastructures.

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