Download VMware Workstation Player 17.5.0

VMware has released version 17.5.0 of Workstation Player. Player is free software that creates and runs virtual machines. However, a fee is charged for commercial use. Simply put, it is a simplified version of other VMware products such as Workstation Pro, Server and ESX Server. Microsoft Virtual PC virtual machines and Symantec LiveState Recovery disks are also supported. The following changes and improvements have been made in version 17.5.0:

What's New

• This release introduces new security enhancement by providing an improved encryption scheme (XTS instead of CBC) for maximum protection with a reduced performance overhead. Please see https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/93071 for more information. This release resolves CVE-2023-34044. For more information on these vulnerabilities and their impact on VMware products, see VMSA-2023-0022.
• Commands You can now control virtual machines using the VMRUN command line utility in Workstation Player. You can use commands to perform various guest operations such as power on or off, capture snapshots for data backup, manage network adapters, run an executable program, manage files and directories, manage processes running on the operating system, and so on.
• You can now import or export a virtual machine with a vTPM device enabled using the OVF Tool. You can export a virtual machine with vTPM device into an OVF file, and then use the OVF file to import the virtual machine with a vTPM.
• You can now power on/off, suspend, pause, unpause, or retrieve the state of an encrypted virtual machine using the VMREST API service.
• VMware Hardware Version 21
  • Support for up to 256 NVMe devices: 4 controllers and 64 devices per controller
  • Support for NVMe 1.3 in the following guest operating systems:
    • Microsoft Windows 11
    • Microsoft Windows Server 2022
• The virtual printer feature has reached its end of life and has been removed from VMware Workstation Player.

Resolved Issues

• When you configure a virtual machine as a VNC server, the VNC client does not correctly show the mouse cursor for the virtual machine you control. This issue has been resolved.
• Unable to start an encrypted virtual machine using VMRUN command without nogui This issue is resolved.
• If you use Workstation 17.0.1 or above on a Windows host with DHCP mode configured, a wireless bridge connection might not work on the host operating system. This issue has been resolved.
• While creating an encrypted virtual machine with Windows guest operating system, if you check the option to remember the password, the virtual machine might prompt you to enter the password again when you try to log in. This issue has been resolved.
• On Workstation Pro 17.0.1 or above, a user cannot downgrade the hardware compatibility version of a Windows 95/98 VM without VMware Tools installed. This issue has been resolved.
• When you enable USB in Workstation Pro, the virtual machines fail to start with a BSOD error. This issue has been resolved.
• When you use Microsoft Visual Studio on a Windows 10/11 guest operating system, the mouse does not click where the mouse pointer is positioned. The issue has been resolved.
• When you install the following Linux-based guest operating system, the virtual machine might boot slowly or fail to boot:
  • Fedora
  • AlmaLinux
  • Debian
  • SLES15
  • Oracle Linux
  • Photon OS

  This issue has been resolved.

• After you change the value of a disk split for an encrypted virtual machine, you cannot decrypt or re-encrypt the virtual machine. This issue has been resolved.

Security Issues

• Pixman has been updated to 0.42.2
• LibTIFF has been updated to 4.5.1
• SQLite3 has been updated to 3.42.0
• curl has been updated to 8.3
• OpenSSL has been updated to 3.0.10