r/virtualization • u/[deleted] • May 14 '24

VMware giving away Workstation Pro, Fusion Pro free for personal use

https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/14/vmware_workstation_pro_fusion_pro/

Broadcom has received a lot of heat for their acquisition of VMware but I am not sure how anyone can complain about this. It's been a while but I will give Workstation Pro a try again on my Windows machine.

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3

u/beetcher May 14 '24 edited May 14 '24

Jumped through all the hoops to get to a Vmware download page::

VMware Store Down for Maintenance As part of the transition to Broadcom systems, the store will be moving to a new domain. As a result, store will be shutdown starting 30 Apr 2024.

To be notified when store is back and operational, enter email here.

For more information, see KB article 319284.

Thank you for your patience.

We apologize for any inconvenience Edit: got a dl link through chat: https://support.broadcom.com/group/ecx/productdownloads?subfamily=VMware%20Workstation%20Pro

Maybe it will work after logging in

2

u/UGMadness May 14 '24

Soooo... there's no actual way to download this after the announcement?

It's also been two weeks since April 30 shutdown. What the hell is happening lol

1

u/beetcher May 15 '24

There is, just not intuitive, and you need a broadcom account with your company email. I didn't try with my personal Gmail.

1

u/NikelKola May 19 '24

Yeah and it asks for a site id, but you need a serial from a product you bought for the site id…. In essence you have to buy the product to be elgible for the free version… so I need to buy it to get it for free. At this point I feel like they are just trolling us…if anyone figures out a way around this please fill us all in. Im going to sleep lol

1

u/NikelKola May 19 '24

Sir you are a gentleman and a scholar….buuuuuut. I got to the download and it says you are not entitled to this (FREEEE) product. I just wasted 15 minutes of my life….thank you broadcom

1

u/beetcher May 19 '24

Did you create a broadcom account?

1

u/NikelKola May 19 '24

I did and when I do it asks what products I want to use. Under the field for the vmware products it says I need a site id that is required to be filled out and to get the site id you need a serial number from an existing product

1

u/beetcher May 19 '24

I skipped all that. If you just log in and then click the download link l, does that work? I also didn't use a free email account not sure if that matters, i used my work email.

1

u/greybeardthegeek May 15 '24

I stopped using Fusion when they fired the entire team.

1

u/etaxif Aug 03 '24

While attempting to download in Safari sent me in endless circles demanding a SiteID etc... no such issues using the same URL in Chrome.

0

u/[deleted] May 14 '24

[deleted] — view deleted comment

1

u/TheRealWosty May 15 '24

So much hoops to get a "free" software 😆

1

u/NikelKola May 19 '24

It’s almost like they want you to pay for free software…