The latest version of the incredibly popular desktop virtualization solution from VMware, Workstation 6.5, is now in Beta and available for download. At the same time, the company also announced a new version of ACE, VMware ACE 2.5 Beta. What's interesting about VMware Workstation is that it can be used as a benchmark to see what's coming down the road for VMware Server and VMware ESX Server. The Workstation pro The latest version of the incredibly popular desktop virtualization solution from VMware, Workstation 6.5, is now in Beta and available for download. At the same time, the company also announced a new version of ACE, VMware ACE 2.5 Beta. What’s interesting about VMware Workstation is that it can be used as a benchmark to see what’s coming down the road for VMware Server and VMware ESX Server. The Workstation product is almost like a new feature proving ground for VMware. So if you keep your eyes and ears open for announcements around Workstation, chances are, you can get a glimpse into the future feature set that might make its way to the company’s server class products.In addition to launching these two Beta products, VMware added a new Web site to its growing list of company blogs and they also created a new Beta community to support Workstation and ACE. So, what’s new with Workstation these days? Some of the new interesting features found in Workstation 6.5 Beta are:Unity mode — Fresh from the VMware Fusion for Mac product, Unity Mode integrates your favorite guest applications with your host machine. The guest application windows look just like host application windows. Enhanced VMware ACE authoring — Use ACE (Assured Computing Environment) features to package and deploy Pocket ACE and desktop virtual machines with encryption, restricted network access, and device control. VMware ACE authoring features are now fully integrated with Workstation, and no special ACE Edition is required. More powerful record/replay of VM execution behavior — Easily enable this powerful debugging tool, which records full system behavior, including all CPU and device activity. You can now insert markers while creating or playing back a recording and quickly navigate to these markers during replay. You can also browse a recording to replay from any spot. Link state propagation for mobile users — If you use virtual machines on a laptop or other mobile device, enable the new link state propagation feature for bridged networks. As you move from one wired or wireless network to another, the IP address is automatically renewed. Support for smart cards in virtual machines — You can plug a smart card reader into a Windows host and insert your smart card to authenticate yourself on your host or on a guest. VProbes tool for investigating guest behavior — You can write VProbes scripts that inspect and record activities in the guest, VMM, VMX, and virtual device state, without modifying that state. For example, VProbes can track which applications are running or indicate which processes are causing page faults. Accelerated 3-D graphics on Windows XP guests — Workstation 6.5 virtual machine now support applications that use DirectX 9 accelerated graphics with shaders up through Shader Model 2.0 on Windows XP guests. Hosts can be running Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Linux. Additional host and guest operating systems – such as CentOS, Oracle Enterprise Linux, Asianux, and newer editions of operating systems already supported. Windows Server 2008 is experimentally supported as a guest.VMware ACE 2.5 Beta adds the following new features:Usability improvements — The process of creating virtual machines for end users is now simpler and more intuitive. The required tasks are clearly ordered and made available on the summary view for an ACE-enabled virtual machine. The concept of an ACE master has been removed in favor of simply enabling ACE features for a virtual machine. New Pocket ACE cache and exit behavior settings — You can now configure runtime settings so that Pocket ACE files are always kept on the USB device and never cached on the host computer. This feature is convenient if disk space on the host is very limited or if the files must remain only on the USB device for security reasons. You can also configure exit behavior so that when users power off a virtual machine, changes are automatically synchronized with the host. Improved Pocket ACE performance — The time it takes to synchronize a Pocket ACE with the host during power off has been greatly reduced. You can now download both Beta versions, Workstation 6.5 and ACE 2.5. Software Development