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Supported Guest Operating Systems
Supported Guest Operating Systems
The operating systems listed here have been tested in VMware Workstation 5 virtual machines and are officially supported. For notes on installing the most common guest operating systems, see the
VMware Guest Operating System Installation Guide, available from the VMware web site at
www.vmware.com/support/guestnotes/doc/index.htmlor from the Help menu.
Operating systems that are not listed are not supported for use in a VMware Workstation virtual machine. For the most recent list of supported guest operating systems, see the following page from the online Workstation 5 documentation on the VMware Web site:
Support for 64-Bit Guest Operating Systems
Workstation 5.5 introduces full support for virtual machines with 64-bit guest operating systems, running on host machines with the following processors:
AMD Athlon 64, revision D or later
AMD Opteron, revision E or later
Intel EM64T VT-capable processors (experimental support)
Workstation supports virtual machines with 64-bit guest operating systems only on host machines that have one of the supported 64-bit processors. When you power on a virtual machine with a 64-bit guest operating system, Workstation performs an internal check: if the host CPU is not a supported 64-bit processor, you cannot power on the virtual machine. VMware also provides a standalone utility that you can use without Workstation to perform the same check and determine whether your CPU is supported for Workstation virtual machines with 64-bit guest operating systems. You can download the 64-bit processor check utility from the VMware web site at
www.vmware.com/download
Note: Workstation supports virtual machines with 64-bit guest operating systems only in versions 5.5 and later. If your version of Workstation is 5.0 or earlier, you must upgrade to version 5.5 or later for 64-bit guest operating system support. A virtual machine created in Workstation version 5.5 with a 64-bit operating system cannot be powered on or resumed in Workstation versions 5.0 and earlier. Also, virtual machines with 64-bit operating systems are not supported for VMware products other than Workstation.
Microsoft Windows 32-Bit
Windows Vista (experimental)
Windows Server 2003 Web Edition, Standard Edition, Enterprise Edition, Small Business Server 2003; Service Pack 1 (listed versions also supported with no service pack)
Windows XP Professional and Home Edition Service Pack 1 or 2 (listed versions also supported with no service pack)
Windows 2000 Professional and Server Service Pack 1, 2, 3 or 4 (listed versions also supported with no service pack), Windows 2000 Advanced Server Service Pack 3 or 4
Windows NTŪ Workstation and Server 4.0 Service Pack 6a required, Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Server Edition Service Pack 6 required
Windows Me
Windows 98 (including all Customer Service Packs) and Windows 98 SE
Windows 95 (including Service Pack 1 and all OSR releases)
Windows for Workgroups 3.11
Windows 3.1
Microsoft Windows 64-Bit
Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition SP1
Windows XP Professional x64 Edition SP1
Microsoft MS-DOS
MS-DOS 6.x
Linux 32-Bit
Mandrake Linux 8.2, 9.0, 9.1, 9.2, 10, 10.1
Red Hat Linux 7.0, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 8.0, 9.0
Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS/ES/WS 4.0 (32-bit)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS/ES/WS 2.1, 3.0
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Advanced Server 2.1
SUSE Linux 7.3, 8.0, 8.1, 8.2, 9.0, 9.1, 9.2, 9.3
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 7, 7 patch 2, 8, 9, 9 SP1
Turbolinux 7.0, Enterprise Server 8, Workstation 8
Novell Linux Desktop 9
Sun Java Desktop System (JDS) 2
Linux 64-bit
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9
SUSE Linux Pro 9.3
SUSE Linux Pro 9.2
SUSE Linux Pro 9.1
Novell Netware
Netware Server 5.1 SP8, 6.0 SP4, 6.5 SP3
FreeBSD 32-Bit
FreeBSD 4.0, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 4.6.2, 4.8, 5.0, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3
Note: If you use SCSI virtual disks larger than 2GB with FreeBSD 4.0-4.3, there are known problems, and the guest operating system does not boot. To work around this issue, see the
VMware Guest Operating System Installation Guide, available
from the VMware Web site or from the Help menu.
FreeBSD 64-Bit
FreeBSD 5.3
Sun Solaris 32-Bit
Experimental support for Solaris x86 Platform Edition 9, 10 beta
Sun Solaris 64-Bit
Experimental support for Solaris 10