Source:
See also: Documentation site, Version history and build numbers
| NT4 | 2000 | XP | Vista | 7 | 8 | 8.1 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | SP3 | yes | |||||
| 2 | SP3 | yes | |||||
| 3 | SP3 | SP2 | SP1 | ||||
| 4 | SP6a | yes | yes | ||||
| 4.5 | SP6a | yes | yes | ||||
| 5 | yes | yes | |||||
| 5.5 | SP3 | yes | |||||
| 6 | SP3 | SP1 | yes | ||||
| 6.5 | SP4 | SP2 | yes | ||||
| 7 | SP2 | yes | yes | ||||
| 8 | yes | yes | yes | ||||
| 9 | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | ||
| 10 | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | ||
| 11 | yes | yes | yes | ||||
| 12 | yes | yes | yes | ||||
| 12.5 | yes | yes | yes | ||||
| 14 | yes | yes | yes | ||||
| 15 | yes | yes | |||||
| 15.5 | yes | yes | |||||
| 16 | yes | ||||||
| 17+ |
This page is about host OS support.
Since VMWare Workstation 8, host OS compatibility stopped being indicated in manuals. Instead, it was first migrated to the online "VMWare Compatibility Guide", before being migrated again to KB2129859, where service pack levels are not indicated.
KB2129859 is not trustworthy regarding sub-versions of Windows 10. Workstation 14 release notes state that "Creators Update" (1703) is newly supported as the host OS. KB2129859 says 1803 instead. 14.0 was released in September 2017. There's no way that it would have support for 1803, a then-future version. Wikipedia probably followed KB2129859, and thus is wrong.
1511 and 1607 aren't indicated in the table, but 12.5 release notes state that support was added for "Anniversary Update" (1607).
16.1 release notes state that support was added for 20H2.
16.2: "As a Host operating system, running VMware virtual machines on Windows 11 with Workstation works just as it did on top of the more recent versions of Windows 10."
VHD support is (probably) added in Workstation 14, as setting a lower compatibility level than that would prevent VHD virtual disks from being used.
VMs in VMWare Workstation 17 (and maybe 16 too, but definitely not 15 or older) lags by default when 3D acceleration is enabled. Specifically, the screen doesn't update until one of the following happens (exactly which one would trigger a screen update is seemingly random):
So, when you're scrolling through a list using the arrow keys, what is displayed is always the state after your previous keypress. This renders keyboard navigation confusing and borderline impossible. Disabling 3D acceleration made this problem go away, but then of course the VM would become very slow, to the point that even sound stutters. Definitely not acceptable.
I searched for a solution for a long time. There were not many reports about this in the first place, and the (assumed) cause of the problem and solution differed. In one such forum post, it was said that the lag is "the Disgusting feature of VMWare MKS Sandbox3D" (source), and adding mks.enableDX12Presentation="FALSE" to %AppData%\VMWare\preferences.ini would fix it. It didn't for me. Instead what helped me was these two forum threads, which suggested disabling the DX12 renderer, and allowing unsupported devices. Here's what I added to preferences.ini:
mks.enableDX11Renderer=TRUE mks.enableDX12Renderer=FALSE mks.enableGLRenderer=FALSE mks.dx11.allowUnsupportedDevices = "TRUE"
One of the posts mentioned mks.vk.allowUnsupportedDevices = "TRUE", but IDK how to enable the Vulkan renderer. Well, DX11 works, so it's good enough for me. Looks like the problem lies in the DX12 renderer.