First major VMware vSphere update expected shortly
A VMware vSphere 4 update is on the way, and users hope it will include full Windows 7 support, particularly for the vSphere Client.
VMware administrators about to upgrade to vSphere 4 might want to hold off a few weeks.
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Exactly which features vSphere Update 1 will contain when it ships is unknown, but IT managers hope that full support for the newly released Windows 7 operating system will be one of them. Administrators would like to be able to run Windows 7 as a guest and use Windows 7 as the underlying OS for the vSphere Client, the management interface (formerly known as the VIC) in which VMware admins spend much of their days. As it stands, you need to tweak the environment to get the vSphere Client to run on Windows 7. And even though Windows 7 has been generally available only since last week, VMware administrators have been playing around with it since it was a release candidate. That's caused some grief among forward-thinking users that want to use Windows 7 as their desktop OS. "Tech geeks are early adopters by nature," wrote Ben Vierck, the chief technology officer at Devfarm Software, a developer of utilities for VMware environments in St. Louis. "IT staff are tech geeks. VIC users are IT staff A = B = C = D, A = D QED last," Vierck explained syllogistically to relay IT staff concern about support for the vSphere Client on Windows. Workstation 7 makes debut
As of today, VMware has full Windows 7 support in two of its products: VMware Workstation 7 and VMware Fusion 3, which are both now generally available. In Workstation 7, users can use Windows 7 as either the host or guest OS. With Fusion 3, which runs on Apple Mac OS, Windows 7 is a supported guest OS. VMware Workstation 7 beta testers have used it to test Windows 7 desktop and applications, configure Windows 7 images and train employees on new Windows 7 features, said Mike Paiko, a VMware senior product marketing manager. Other features in VMware Workstation 7 include support for virtual machines with up to four virtual CPUs and 32 GB of RAM, expanded three-dimensional graphics support, driverless printing, snapshot scheduling, and deeper Eclipse and SpringSource integrated development environments. Both Workstation 7 and Fusion 3 are available for download from the VMware website.
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