What's in the Release Notes

The release notes cover the following topics:

About VMware Workstation Pro
What's New
Prior Releases
Known Issues
Resolved Issues

About VMware Workstation Pro

VMware Workstation Pro enables technical professionals to develop, test, demonstrate, and deploy software by running multiple x86-based Windows, Linux, and other operating systems simultaneously on the same PC.

You can replicate server, desktop, and tablet environments in a virtual machine and allocate multiple processor cores, gigabytes of main memory and graphics memory to each virtual machine, whether the VM resides on a personal PC or on a private enterprise cloud.

For more information, see the broader VMware Workstation documentation or specifically the VMware Workstation 12 Pro Documentation Center.

What's New

VMware Workstation 12 Pro version 12.0.1 is a maintenance release that resolves some known issues. It is a free upgrade for all VMware Workstation 12 Pro users.

Prior Releases

Features and Known Issues from prior releases of VMware Workstation and VMware Workstation 12 Pro are described in the release notes for each release. To view the release notes for the prior release of VMware Workstation 12 Pro, click the following link:

VMware Workstation 12 Pro

Known Issues

The following issues might occur in this version of VMware Workstation Pro.

Resuming a virtual machine that was suspended with the vmware-kvm.exe command causes the desktop of the virtual machine to freeze
When you start a virtual machine that was put into a suspended state with the vmware-kvm.exe command, the virtual machine starts successfully in the background. However, the desktop of the virtual machine does not respond to mouse or keyboard operations.
Workaround:
1. Exit the vmware-kvm.exe tool by issuing the following command: vmware-kvm.exe --exit
2. Start the virtual machine in VMware Workstation Pro or VMware Workstation Player.

On the Ubuntu 15.10 guest operating system, replacing open-vm-tools with the bundled VMware Tools version, might cause VMware Tools to work improperly
On the Ubuntu 15.10 guest, when you replace open-vm-tools with the VMware Tools version bundled with VMware Workstation 12 Pro version 12.0.1, VMware Tools does not work as expected. After you reboot the system, an Ubuntu crash report might appear and one of the services in VMware Tools might stop working.
Workaround: Use either of the following workarounds, depending on which is most appropriate for your situation.

Continue to use open-vm-tools. Do not use the bundled VMware Tools.
If the bundled VMware Tools are installed, perform the following steps:
1. As root, edit the /etc/vmware-tools/vmware-user.desktop file by changing this line:
  Exec=/usr/bin/vmware-user
  To this line:
  Exec=env VMWARE_USE_SHIPPED_LIBS=1 /usr/bin/vmware-user
2. Log out of the guest and log in again.
  This change can prevent the VMware Tools service (vmtoolsd) from crashing.
3. To verify that the preceding steps are effective, issue the following command:
  'ps -aux | grep vmtools'
  The appropriate command return shows both of the following vmtoolsd services running:
  - /usr/sbin/vmtoolsd
  - /usr/lib/vmware-tools/sbin64/vmtoolsd

Using a USB headset with a Windows 8 or later guest operating system might result in poor audio quality
USB headsets not designed for USB 3.0 controllers might not perform well with Windows 8 and later guests because Windows 8 and later guest operating systems use a USB 3.0 controller by default.
Using USB headsets not designed for USB 3.0 controllers result in poor audio quality in the following situations:
- Windows 8: Poor quality audio occurs when used with audio conferencing software, such as Skype and Lync.
- Windows 10: Poor quality audio occurs in most or all situations.
Workaround:
Use the workaround that is most appropriate for your needs.
- Change the USB controller of the guest from USB 3.0 to USB 2.0.
- Use a USB headset designed to work with USB 3.0 controllers.

Resolved Issues

The following issues were resolved in this version of VMware Workstation Pro.

When you use 64-bit VIX API to control virtual machines, the API breaks
The 32-bit components of the VIX API are packaged in the 64-bit directory, which causes a break when you use 64-bit VIX API.

This issue is resolved.

When you use Easy Install to install CentOS 7.0, the installation might stop at "WELCOME TO CENTOS 7" page

This issue is resolved.

When you use the Easy Install option with the Windows Server 2016 guest operating system, the virtual machine displays a black screen

This issue is resolved.

After installing VMware Tools version 10.0.0 on a FreeBSD 10.x virtual machine, the guest might not shut down properly when performed from the VMware Workstation Pro interface
When you install VMware Tools version 10.0.0 on a FreeBSD 10.x virtual machine, the VMware Tools service, vmtoolsd, might not launch. The VMware Tools service runs in the background and is responsible for a variety of operations. A symptom you might encounter is that the guest operating system does not shut down as intended when performed from the VMware Workstation Pro interface. For example, the first attempt to shutdown the guest from the interface might fail while the second attempt from the interface is converted into a virtual machine power off operation instead of a graceful shutdown.

This issue is resolved.

Virtual machines fail to start on a host with an Intel Skylake processor
A compatibility issue might prevent a virtual machine from starting on a host with an Intel Skylake processor when the Gather Debugging Information option in the virtual machine's advanced settings is set to Full. The error message displayed includes ASSERT vmcore/vmm/cpu/fpu.c:347.

This issue is resolved.