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 virtual machine resides on a personal PC or on a private enterprise cloud.

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

What's New

VMware Workstation 12 Pro version 12.5.3 is a free upgrade for all VMware Workstation 12 Pro users. It contains bug fixes, security updates, and performance improvements.

Prior Releases

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

Known Issues

The VMware Tools installer fails and displays an error messages in a FreeBSD 11.0 virtual machine
In a FreeBSD 11.0 virtual machine, at the end of the VMware Tools installation process, the installer indicates that guest memory manager and blocking file system services fail to start.
Workaround: None.
1. Install VMware Tools.
2. To prevent /usr/local/bin/vmware-config-tools.pl from being invoked, answer No to the following question: Do you want this program to invoke the command for you now?
3. Run the following configuration script: /usr/local/bin/vmware-config-tools.pl --skip-stop-start
4. Run the following command: echo "answer VMMEMCTL_CONFED no" >> /etc/vmware-tools/locations
5. Start VMware Tools with the following command: /usr/local/etc/rc.d/vmware-tools.sh star

The installation graphical user interface does not launch on a Fedora 25 host
When you install Workstation Pro on a Fedora 25 host, the installation interface might fail to launch as the system presents the following error message: User interface initialization failed. Exiting. Check the log for details.
Workaround: Launch a terminal on a Fedora 25 host and run the following command: sudo dnf install ncurses-compat-libs. You can then install Workstation Pro in console mode.

Resolved Issues

Workstation Pro fails to launch on a Linux platform that uses kernel 4.9.0
When trying to launch the Workstation Pro on a Linux platform with kernel 4.9.0, the Virtual Machine Monitor (vmmon) and Virtual Network Device (vmnet) modules fail to build and a dialog box displays the following error: Unable to start services.

This issue is resolved.

Occasionally, the Workstation Pro user interface crashes in Workstation 12 Pro version 12.5 and displays an error
The Workstation Pro user interface crashes and issues the following error: VMWare Workstation unrecoverable error: (vmui) Exception 0xc000005 (access violation) has occurred

This issue is resolved.

When you use a USB device that does not follow USB specifications in a virtual machine in USB passthrough mode, the guest becomes unusable
When you attempt to pass through a USB device that does not follow USB specifications, such as the Broadcom 5880 smart card reader, to a Windows 7 or Windows 10 guest operating system, the device causes the guest CPU usage to increase to the maximum level, making the guest unusable.

This issue is resolved.

You cannot connect a parallel port to a virtual machine
When you attempt to map a parallel port to a physical parallel port, you cannot use the parallel port in the virtual machine. The connecting parallel port listed when you select VM > Settings triggers the following error: Cannot open VMparport drivr for LPT1: the system cannot find the file specified.....

This issue is resolved.

Connecting an Active Braille device to the virtual machines fails
When Workstation Pro users select VM > Removable Devices to connect an Active Braille device to the virtual machine, the attempt fails and a "driver error" message appears in the message log. Also, the guest operating system shows no record of the device.

This issue is resolved.

After users execute Active FTP in the guest operating system, the vmnat.exe process continues to use a TCP port of the host
The vmnat.exe process consumes a new TCP port on the host when users execute Active FTP on the guest. The process does not release the TCP port even when the FTP session is closed.

This issue is resolved.

ThinPrint technology does not work in a Windows XP guest operating system with VMware Tools 10.0.10
When users use a Windows XP guest with VMware Tools 10.0.10, they cannot see host printers that are mapped to the guest with ThinPrint technology.

This issue is resolved with VMware Tools 10.0.12 when you perform a clean installation. Upgrading from VMware Tools 10.0.10 to 10.0.12 does not resolve the issue.

VMware Tools service is not started in Ubuntu 16.10 guest
After installing VMware Tools in an Ubuntu 16.10 guest, the VMware Tools service is not started. As a result, functionality provided by the VMware Tools service, for example, shared folders, is not available.

This issue is resolved.

You cannot use shared folders in a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.3 virtual machine
After enabling and adding a shared folder to a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.3 virtual machine, none of the added shared folders are available in the /mnt/hgfs directory in the virtual machine.

This issue is resolved.