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    VMWare Workstation best deal?

    Discussion in 'Windows OS and Software' started by mochaultimate, Feb 25, 2012.

  1. mochaultimate

    mochaultimate Notebook Consultant

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    Hi everyone,

    I've recently been introduced to the world of virtualization and how much of a help it is to my daily work. Now I'm looking to get the full version of VMWare Workstation (instead of Player which I'm using atm), and see the price on their website is $199.

    My question is, are there coupons or other reseller sites from which I can buy this software, so that I can save a few pennies :D Any help or general directions will be greatly appreciated!
     
    mochaultimate, Feb 25, 2012
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  2. pusta

    pusta Notebook Consultant

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    Personally I have never really seen it on sale, other than an upgrade price. You could also try Virtual Box, which is free and a great virtualization platform.

    https://www.virtualbox.org/
     
    pusta, Feb 25, 2012
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  3. Peon

    Peon Notebook Virtuoso

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    There was a sale back back around Christmas, and they have a permanent half price student discount, but otherwise as pusta says it rarely goes on sale since VMware Workstation isn't really the kind of thing you give to your significant other as a Valentine's Day gift or a birthday present.

    VirtualBox is a free alternative, but it's only great if you can put up with a serious lack of polish. Meaning tons of bugs, the biggest one affecting the current release (4.1.8) being that reverting to a snapshot has a 5-10% chance of corrupting your VM :rolleyes:
     
    Peon, Feb 25, 2012
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  4. mochaultimate

    mochaultimate Notebook Consultant

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    Thanks for the advice! I've been doing a bit of Googling and came across this site that appears to offer a 10% coupon, but I'm not sure if it's frowned upon to repost it here. It appears to be legit since clicking on the link brings me to the VMWare site, but with the price of Workstation adjusted downwards.

    I'm using Player now - other than snapshots, what other major differences can I expect from Workstation? I would be happy enough to pay for Workstation with just the snapshots function, but mainly because I don't feel too safe entrusting my work to 'free' software - if that makes any sense? :p
     
    mochaultimate, Feb 25, 2012
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  5. Geekz

    Geekz Notebook Deity

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    Well, the main difference is running multiple VMs at the same time with workstation, I believe you can only run one at a time with player.

    Also managing and creating snapshots, Remote VM are in workstation and not in player.

    not sure about headless VM and shared VM (these are virtual machines running in the background so other users could remote to it while you work on your machine, also has no interface unless you remote desktop to it)
    as for performance they are pretty much the same, player has always been the same with workstation with less features but the engine underneath is identical.
     
    Geekz, Feb 25, 2012
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