Download VMware Player 3.1.1 build 282343

VMware has released version 3.1.1 of its Player. VMware Player is a free piece of software that can run virtual machines created with other VMware products, such as Workstation, Server and ESX Server. Microsoft Virtual PC virtual machines and Symantec LiveState Recovery disks are also supported. In addition, various pre-installed virtual machines can be this page are downloaded, such as CentOS 5.5, Ubuntu 10.4 and Fedora 13. Since the previous entry in the Meuktracker, the following changes and improvements have been made:

VMware Player 3.1.1 Release Notes

Resolved Issues

• In some cases upon starting a virtual machine, the USB arbitration service might fail to start on systems that do not have a device identified as USBFDO-0 and prevent the use of USB devices in the virtual machine. The following error message appears, “Host USB device connections disabled”. For this release, the USB arbitration service is updated to start whenever a USB device exists even if no devices meet this criteria.
• When a host system failure occurs during a virtual machine disk operation, attempting to power on the virtual machine or mount the virtual disk using the VMware Disk Mount utility causes the following error messages to appear, ” Cannot open the disk… The specified virtual disk needs repair” and “Error reading volume information. Please select another disk file”. There is no data lost during this process. VMware Player 3.1.1 fixes this issue and enables virtual machine operations to resume.
• Mapping a virtual disk with multiple partitions to a drive on the host machine and enabling write access only succeeds if you are mounting the first partition. This update enables other partitions to be successfully mounted and accessible to the host operating system.

VMware Player 3.1 Release Notes

New Support for 32-Bit and 64-Bit Operating Systems:

Operating System Host and Guest Support

New Features in VMware Player

• OpenGL 2.1 Support for Windows 7 and Windows Vista Guests — Improves the ability to run graphics-based applications in virtual machines.
• Improved Graphics Performance — Enhanced performance with better benchmarks, frame rates, and improved rendering on Windows 7 and Windows Vista guests allows you to run various graphics-based applications. In addition, major improvements in video playback enable you to play high-resolution videos in virtual machines.
• Automatic Software Updates — Download and install VMware Tools and receive maintenance updates when available.
• Direct Launch — Drag guest applications from the Unity start menu directly onto the host desktop. Double-click the shortcut to open the guest application. The shortcut remains on the desktop after you exit Unity and close VMware Player.
• Autologon — Save your login credentials and bypass the login dialog box when you power on a Windows guest. Use this feature if you restart the guest frequently and want to avoid entering your login credentials. You can enable Autologon and use direct launch to open guest applications from the host.
• OVF 1.1 Support — Import or export virtual machines and vApps to upload them to VMware vSphere or VMware vCloud. The VMware OVF Tool is a command-line utility bundled in the VMware Player installer. Use this tool along with VMware Player to convert VMware .vmx files to .ovf format or vice versa. VMware recommends that you use the OVF command-line utility. For more information, see the OVF Web site and OVF Tool User Guide.
• Eight-Way SMP Support — Create and run virtual machines with a total of up to eight-processor cores.
• 2TB Virtual Disk Support — Maximum virtual disks and raw disks size increased from 950GB to 2TB.
• Encryption Enhancements — VMware Player includes support for Intel’s Advanced Encryption Standard instruction set (AES-NI) to improve performance while encrypting and decrypting virtual machines and faster run-time access to encrypted virtual machines on new processors.
• Memory Management — User interface enhancements have simplified the handling of increased virtual memory capacity.
• User Experience Improvement Program — Help VMware improve future versions of the product by participating in the User Experience Improvement Program. Participation in the program is voluntary and you can opt out at any time. When you participate in the User Experience Improvement Program, your computer sends anonymous information to VMware, which may include product configuration; usage and performance data, virtual machine configuration; usage and performance data, and information about your host system specifications and configuration.
  The User Experience Improvement Program does not collect any personal data, such as your name, address, telephone number, or email address that can be used to identify or contact you. No user identifiable data such as the product license key or MAC address are sent to VMware. VMware does not store your IP address with the data that is collected.
  For more information about the User Experience Improvement Program, click the Learn More link during installation or from the VMware Player Preferences menu.