VMware Workstation allows operating systems and applications to run inside virtual machines. Virtual machines are discrete environments that run independently of the host machine's operating system. Within VMware Workstation, you can launch a virtual machine inside of a window that can run its own operating systems and applications. You can switch between multiple virtual machines running on your desktop, share virtual machines over a network (such as a corporate LAN), suspend and resume virtual machines and exit virtual machines all without affecting the operation of your host machine and any operating system or applications it is running.
For example, if you're a developer who needs to test in Windows NT plus Windows 3.1, Windows 98, Windows 2000 and Linux you can do it with VMware Workstation. You can create a whole set of virtual computers and run them simultaneously from a single machine without rebooting.
VMware Workstation is used for many different purposes. It can be used to test new operating system or application environments, deploy new operating systems to users, share configured environments during educational seminars, and so on.
VMware products are built on our patent-pending technology: a thin software layer that sits between Intel® architecture computer hardware and the operating system, virtualizing the hardware and managing all hardware resources. VMware technology takes the principles of classic virtual machine technology and combines them with advanced virtual networking and system and resource management technologies.
The physical computer where you install the VMware Workstation software is called the host computer and its operating system is called the host operating system. The operating system running inside a virtual machine is called a guest operating system.
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