Since it was made free to download, install and use for whatever you want, VMware Workstation Pro (and macOS counterpart Fusion Pro) have continued to receive frequent updates — the latest of which arrived this week.
Now sporting a new date-based versioning scheme, VMware Workstation Pro 25H2 is a sizeable update that adds support for newer hardware, and updates its list of supported ‘host’ operating systems (the one you install VMware Workstation on).
VMware Workstation Pro 25H2 brings support for Virtual Hardware Version 22. VMware hardware versions set out the virtual hardware a VM can use, and each bump to the spec expands the range, speed and class of options guest OSes can make use of.
Hardware v22 itself makes NVMe 1.3c the default controller on guest OSes, supports USB 3.2 devices, and adds compatibility with Direct3D 11.0 & OpenGL 4.0. The v22 spec also supports PCI passthrough, but that’s not a feature available in Workstation itself (yet).
On the features-front, this update adds dictTool, a new command-line tool to examine and modify VMware configuration files, like a vmx file or user preferences file. There’s fresh documentation on how to use dictTool, for those keen to learn.
Beyond that, this update adds support for running on Intel Lunar Lake, Arrow Lake, and Meteor Lake CPUs, and adds Hyper-V/WHP detection (on Workstation only) to make it easier to identify a VM’s running mode in Workstation by showing Hyper-V/WHP status.
Guest OS support now covers Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, Fedora Linux 42 openSUSE Leap 16.0, Debian 13, Oracle Linux 10 and VMware ESX 9.0. The bulk of those systems gains host support too, as does macOS 26 Tahoe (in Fusion Pro).
Ubuntu 25.10 isn’t explicitly mentioned as working in this update, it will work fine – it just isn’t “officially supported” yet, so if things are wonky, you don’t get to complain too loudly about it.
Features are only one half of the update. Fixes round out the rest. Aside from security patches (always welcome) and accessibility enhancements (also welcome), there are a number of notable improvements for end users, particularly those on Linux:
- Optimized Linux support bundles for ‘easier handling’
- UI quirks with resizing and window controls on Windows fixed
- Reduced logging by vmauthd in Windows Event Viewer
- Option to discard VM suspend states
- Linux Intel GPU 3D acceleration issues resolved
- vctl Utility is no longer included
More details on the makeup of this release can be found by reading the 22H2 release announcement or the techdocs release notes.
Installing VMware Workstation Pro on Ubuntu
VMware Workstation Pro is free, but not open source software. It can be used for commercial, educational, and personal use without a license key. Getting the installer does require signing up for an account, and the actual download link is quite buried.
To install VMware Workstation Pro on Ubuntu download the .bundle file from the link you get above, and then run that file from the command line as a root user. This will install the software — but you’re not done yet.
Next, install the following (if not already present): build-essential (needed for GCC), and linux-headers-generic-{your-kernel-version}. If you launch VMware Workstation without these, it won’t be able to build its kernel modules.
Finally, open VMware Workstation Pro, whizz through the kernel module installation wizard, and then you’re good to go with installing a guest OS from an ISO!
Thanks Bert!