VMware Player is an easy-to-use application will offer users the possibility to run any virtual machine on their computer.

Get more out of your existing computer hardware. Use the free VMware Player application to run multiple operating systems simultaneously on a single PC.

With VMware Player, you can use any virtual machine created by VMware Workstation, VMware Fusion, VMware Server or VMware ESX, as well as Microsoft Virtual Server virtual machines and Microsoft Virtual PC virtual machines. Import third party images including Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery (formerly called Live State Recovery) images, Norton Ghost 10 images, Norton Save & Restore images, StorageCraft ShadowProtect images, and Acronis True Image images to VMware Player compatible virtual machines. Use 32- and 64-bit Windows, Linux, NetWare, or Solaris x86 operating systems side-by-side, without rebooting or partitioning your hard drive.

Features:

Leverage 2-way Virtual SMP:

Users can run virtual machines with multiple CPUs to experience improved performance when working with multi-threaded, resource-intensive software.

Use 3rd-party virtual machines and images:

Open Microsoft virtual machines, Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery (formerly called Live State Recovery) images, Norton Ghost 10 images, Norton Save & Restore images, StorageCraft ShadowProtect images, and Acronis True Image images. In this process, the initial virtual machine or image is left untouched in its native format and any modifications are saved in a much smaller VMware-formatted file that is linked to the initial image.

Share data between host computer and virtual machine:

Copy text and files between the virtual machine and the host PC. Drag and drop files between a Windows host PC and a Windows virtual machine. Or, enable Shared Folders to seamlessly access data on your host computer.

Broad host and guest operating system support:

Run any of the over 60 supported 32- and 64-bit guest operating systems including Vista, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10, Ubuntu 6.10, Ubuntu 7.04, Ubuntu 8.04, and many more.

Support for USB 2.0 devices:

Use peripherals that require high-speed performance in your VMs, such as MP3 Players and fast storage devices.

Get appliance info at start-up:

Start a virtual appliance in the appliance view to review brief description and other relevant information provided by the appliance author.

Gain easy access to virtual machines via intuitive home page interface:

Leverage an intuitive home page interface that lets you open existing virtual machines or browse the VMware Virtual Appliance Marketplace to download any of the over 900 virtual appliances. Virtual appliances are pre-built, pre-configured and ready-to-run enterprise software applications packaged along with an operating system within virtual machines.