In case you missed it, it was only a few days ago that VMware updated their popular desktop virtualization platform, Workstation, to a newer Beta release - Workstation 6.5 Beta 1 Refresh. With the new Beta 1 Refresh comes a new Community Portal page as well. Unfortunately, if you signed up for the Beta program prior to May 14, 2008, it looks like you'll need to sign up again. Inconvenient, but it's certainly a s In case you missed it, it was only a few days ago that VMware updated their popular desktop virtualization platform, Workstation, to a newer Beta release – Workstation 6.5 Beta 1 Refresh. With the new Beta 1 Refresh comes a new Community Portal page as well. Unfortunately, if you signed up for the Beta program prior to May 14, 2008, it looks like you’ll need to sign up again. Inconvenient, but it’s certainly a small price to pay for what you get.So what’s going on with the VMware Workstation 6.5 Beta 1 Refresh? VMware has added performance enhancements to its VM Record and Replay technology. With it, you can record your entire VM execution and replay it with instruction-exact precision. A graphical interface lets you browse, add markers to and edit your recordings so you can easily monitor and analyze your virtual environment. You can now enjoy seamless integration of your favorite Linux guest applications with your host thanks to the addition of Unity for Linux, a popular new feature in desktop virtualization. With Unity, you can launch, access and run guest applications alongside your host applications. And finally, they’ve made it even easier to install Linux guest operating systems with the Easy Install Option.When the 6.5 Beta was first released, one of the complaints expressed was over the removal of the ability to install and operate VMware ESX inside of a Workstation virtual machine. Yes, it does sound odd. Why would you install and run an enterprise server class virtualization product like that within a desktop virtual machine? Rest easy, people weren’t looking to run their datacenter environment with this architecture. Instead, it could be used as a playground or a testing and development environment. Fact is, not everyone has a host of “supported” equipment lying around to try their hand at installing and navigating around VMware ESX. So what does updating do for those people? It sounds like VMware has added back the ability to install and run VMware ESX inside a Workstation 6.5 virtual machine with the latest Refresh build.In order to get things working, don’t forget that you need to modify the virtual machine’s VMX configuration file, adding lines such as: ethernet0.virtualDev = “e1000” monitor.virtual_exec = “hardware” monitor_control.restrict_backdoor = “true” Eric Sloof has more information about the modifications needed to your configuration file on his blog, NTPRO.NL. Software Development