VMWare Workstation Host Operating System

I too have been wondering this and am downloading 7 to see if there are any performance gains.

• 3d Graphics support - no use for myself but maybe handy for those wanting to run Vista/7 in its full glory
• vSphere and ESXi support is great - can finally test ESXi due to HCL issues with my i7 12Gb Hardware
• Automatic Snapshots - maybe handy when you forget to take a snapshot when you just install that component!
• Driverless printing - Now this could be handy for testing printing from your application in the testing environment

But like you, I just want to know if it performs better!

Update

It feels like it performs better so there maybe some good reasons to do the upgrade if you feel like your workstation is sluggish when running 6.5.

Have not tested 3d effects or the Unity functions Unity works well for those that require it

The major improvement is not only VM boot speed but suspend and resume has increased dramatically. I think they have overhauled this entirely with 7.

Overview

For those thinking about upgrading, I would suggest that it feels like it is definately worth it just for the performance and suspend/resume gains.

These tests have been performed on Windows 2003 R2 server & Windows XP. No other guests have been verified.

The way I have always done this is to activate a 'master' image, and then copy it. When VMWare first launches the copies, it asks if you (c)opied the image or (m)oved it. If you say "Moved", it does not cause reactivation. However, those machines cannot live on the same LAN segment because they have the same machine name and MAC address. So, after each machine boots once, you can shut them down and change those properties and it all works.