VMware is a mature and stable virtualization solution that allows you to run multiple, isolated operating systems on a single machine. You can create your own virtual machines and evaluate software distributed as a virtual appliance from many software vendors available from VMware’s Solution Exchange .

This tutorial will guide you through the steps of installing VMware Workstation Player on CentOS 7.

VMware Workstation Player is not open-source and it is free only for personal non-commercial use. If you are looking for an open-source virtualization platform, you should try Oracle’s VirtualBox .

Before you proceed with this tutorial, make sure you are logged in as a user with sudo privileges .

To install and use VMware Workstation Player, your system should meet the following requirements:

1.3GHz or faster 64-bit CPU.

2 GB RAM memory minimum/ 4GB RAM or more recommended.

Installing VMware Workstation Player on CentOS #

At the time of writing this article, the latest version of VMware Workstation Player is version 15.0.2.

Complete the following steps to install VMware Workstation Player on CentOS 7:

1. Download VMware Workstation Player #

Download the latest version of VMware Workstation Player by running the following wget command :

wget --user-agent="Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:60.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/60.0" https://www.vmware.com/go/getplayer-linux

Once the download is completed make the installation file executable using the following chmod command:

chmod +x getplayer-linux

2. Install VMware Workstation Player #

The installation is quite easy, just follow the on-screen instructions. Start the Installation wizard by typing:

sudo ./getplayer-linux

A screen similar to the following will be displayed. Accept the terms in the license agreement and click on the Next button.

Next, you will be asked whether you like to check for product updates on startup. Make your selection and click on the Next button.

VMware’s Customer Experience Improvement Program (“CEIP”) helps VMware to improve their products and services by sending anonymous system data and usage information to VMware. If you prefer not to participate in the program select No and click on the Next button.

In the next step, you will be prompted to enter the license key. VMware Workstation Player is free for personal non-commercial use. Purchasing a license key will enable the Pro features an can be used commercially.

If you don’t have a license key, leave the field empty and click on the Next button.

Next, you will see the following page informing you that the VMware Workstation Player is ready to be installed. Click on the Install button.

The installation may take several minutes. During the installation, you will see information about the progress. Once completed the following screen will appear informing you that the VMware Workstation Player is successfully installed.

3. Start VMware Workstation Player #

Now that VMware Workstation Player is installed on your CentOS system you can launch it by clicking on the VMware Player icon ( Applications -> System Tools -> VMware Workstation Player ).

When you start VMware Player for the first time, a window like the following will appear asking you whether you like to use VMware Workstation Player free for personal non-commercial use or enter a license.

Make your selection, click on the OK button and the VMware Player application will start.

At this point, you have successfully installed VMware Workstation Player on your CentOS system. You can now explore the application options and create your first virtual machine.

To learn more about VMware Workstation Player visit their official documentation page.

If you have any questions, please leave a comment below.