VMware Workstation Pro goes free, official guides on how to install and switch are out

VMware, yesterday, had some big news to share. The company shared that its Pro hypervisor apps, namely, Workstation Pro and Fusion Pro, were going free for personal use.

After the announcement was made, Michael Roy, the Product Line Manager for VMware Desktop Hypervisor products, published a detailed guide on his official blog.

A summary of the steps involved in downloading and installing have also been put up by Roy so users can have a quick glance at what they need to do. The gist of it mainly involves going to Broadcom's site, registering, and choosing the appropriate version of Fusion Pro or Workstation Pro. (For Workstation Pro it is 17.5.2, for Fusion Pro it is 13.5.2). This release also fixes a high CPU usage issue that was the consequence of a buggy NAT device.

Here is the summarised version:

Summary

 

1. Go to broadcom.com
2. In the upper right corner, select 'Support Portal'
3. Either log in by clicking 'Go To Portal' or 'Register' for a basic Broadcom account Quick link to the registration form
4. Once logged in, go to support.braodcom.com if you're not redirected there
5. Click the dropdown to choose the VMware Cloud Foundation division
6. On the left, click 'My Downloads'
7. Search for either Fusion or Workstation
8. Click the product name (VMware Fusion or VMware Workstation Pro )
9. Notice the dropdown for the Personal Use edition (it is the exact same binaries as the Commercial one)
10. Select 17.5.2 or 13.5.2
11. Download and install

Aside from the download and install guide, Michael Roy also published a guide on how to switch to Pro in case you are already using Workstation Player or Fusion Player.

In case you want to upgrade from Workstation Player to Workstation Pro, you can simply uninstall the former and download Pro using the above guide.

The one for Fusion Pro is trickier though as it involves manual steps with the help of Sudo as Fusion "doesn't currently allow you to 'delete' an active license."

You can check out the guides in detail at the source links below.

Source: Michael Roy (link1, link2)

Source