VMmare Workstation Pro and Player 17.5 are out with improved vTPM support, fixes, and more

VMware Workstation Pro and Player version 17.5 are now available for download. The latest virtualization software from VMware delivers security enhancements, VMRUN commands for controlling virtual machines, an option to export or import virtual machines with vTPM, improved hardware support, and numerous fixes. Here are the changelogs.

What is new in VMware Workstation Pro and Player 17.5?

New features and changes:

New Security Enhancement

This release introduces new security enhancement by providing an improved encryption scheme (XTS instead of CBC) for maximum protection with a reduced performance overhead. Please see https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/93071 for more information.

This release resolves CVE-2023-34044. For more information on these vulnerabilities and their impact on VMware products, see VMSA-2023-0022.

Control Virtual Machines using the VMRUN Commands

You can now control virtual machines using the VMRUN command line utility in Workstation Player. You can use commands to perform various guest operations such as power on or off, capture snapshots for data backup, manage network adapters, run an executable program, manage files and directories, manage processes running on the operating system, and so on.

Import and Export Virtual Machines with vTPM device

You can now import or export a virtual machine with a vTPM device enabled using the OVF Tool. You can export a virtual machine with vTPM device into an OVF file, and then use the OVF file to import the virtual machine with a vTPM.

Manage Power Operations of Encrypted Virtual Machines using VMREST API

You can now power on/off, suspend, pause, unpause, or retrieve the state of an encrypted virtual machine using the VMREST API service.

VMware Hardware Version 21

• Support for up to 256 NVMe devices: 4 controllers and 64 devices per controller
• Support for NVMe 1.3 in the following guest operating systems:
  • Microsoft Windows 11
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2022

And here is what was fixed:

The cursor does not appear in the VNC client while remotely controlling a virtual machine

When you configure a virtual machine as a VNC server, the VNC client does not correctly show the mouse cursor for the virtual machine you control.

Cannot start an encrypted virtual machine using VMRUN

Unable to start an encrypted virtual machine using VMRUN command without nogui

Wireless bridge connection might not work on a Windows host with DHCP configured

If you use Workstation 17.0.1 or above on a Windows host with DHCP mode configured, a wireless bridge connection might not work on the host operating system.

Cannot access an encrypted virtual machine with remember password option enabled

While creating an encrypted virtual machine with Windows guest operating system, if you check the option to remember the password, the virtual machine might prompt you to enter the password again when you try to log in.

Cannot downgrade the hardware compatibility of a virtual machine

On Workstation Pro 17.0.1 or above, a user cannot downgrade the hardware compatibility version of a Windows 95/98 VM without VMware Tools installed.

Virtual machine shows BSOD when USB is enabled

When you enable USB in Workstation Pro, the virtual machines fail to start with a BSOD error.

The mouse cursor offsets from the point of event in Visual Studio

When you use Microsoft Visual Studio on a Windows 10/11 guest operating system, the mouse does not click where the mouse pointer is positioned.

Linux-based guest operating system boots slowly with the default RAM and CPU for a virtual machine

When you install the following Linux-based guest operating system, the virtual machine might boot slowly or fail to boot:

• Fedora
• AlmaLinux
• Debian
• SLES15
• Oracle Linux
• Photon OS

Unable to decrypt or re-encrypt a virtual machine after changing the disk split value

After you change the value of a disk split for an encrypted virtual machine, you cannot decrypt or re-encrypt the virtual machine.

Security Issues

• Pixman has been updated to 0.42.2
• LibTIFF has been updated to 4.5.1
• SQLite3 has been updated to 3.42.0
• curl has been updated to 8.3
• OpenSSL has been updated to 3.0.10

You can update to version 17.5 by launching VMware Workstation Pro or Player and clicking Player > Help > Software Updates.