VMWare, one of the most prominent names in virtualization, is launching Workstation Version 7.1 as a public beta release. The best part is, it’s free ’till May. What are the new features? Read on…

Obviously, we’re not moving a whole version number here, so we’re not going to be bumping up anything tremendous, but there are a nice slew of new features and according to VMWare “hundreds of minor improvements”…

OpenGL 2.1 is now supported under Windows 7 and Vista, which means you can run some more graphically intensive games or applications you might not have been able to in the past. It also means improved graphics performance, so no slow window refreshes. According to the press release, “The updated [WDDM driver] produces smoother video playback and address many reported rendering issues.” It still looks like Parallels Desktop has the upper hand on 3D graphics, however. To be fair, this is a ‘Workstation’, and not an apples-to-apples comparison, since VMware Fusion would be the true contender to Parallels Desktop.

Here’s the more technical news — 8-way SMP support. Workstation 7.1 8-way SMP (Symmetric Multi-Processing) and bolstered virtual disks to go up to 2TB in size. Also in this version is OVF tool, which allows users to import or export virtual machines quickly, (vApps included.) You can move them to vSphere or up to a cloud.

Workstation 7.1 is coming with Direct Launch. “Blur[ing] the distinction between running native and virtual applications,” Direct Launch lets applications installed on a VM run directly by the host system without launching the entire VM. This nearly leap-frogs Parallels Desktop’s “Coherence” which simply removes the VM screen layer of abstraction so VM apps work next to non-VM apps.

Plus, there’s automatic software updates, the ability to run Fedora 12 as a VM. The only down part? You’ll have to be running either Linux or Windows to take advantage of the beta. You can get it here, and the serial code is free ’till May 15th 2010. Let us know if you take it for a test ride.

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