At the time of this writing, VMware was getting ready to release the next version of its workstation product, VMware Workstation 4.5. VMware expects to release VMware Workstation 4.5 in the second half of 2004. The 4.5 release is a free upgrade for existing VMware Workstation 4 customers. Some of the main features that VMware plans for VMware Workstation 4.5 are
- increased memory for virtual machines (VMs)—up to 3.6GB per VM and 4GB for all VMs
- support for installing Longhorn (the next Windows OS version) as a guest OS
- better performance for Linux 2.6 kernel systems as guest OSs
- Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) support for booting and installing guest OSs
- automatic checking for product updates
- a new tip-of-the-day pop-up window
- USB device installation for nonadministrators