Jlauro,

Thanks for your email. The poll was conducted based on asking the question how many customers need 32-bit support for the client under a 64-bit host.

We will have support for this and also a true 64-bit client somtime second-half next year.

Regards,

Andre Kemp
Sr. Product Marketing Manager

Mcwill,

A unsupported patch is in the works, the timeline I gave was for a fully supported version. One of our customers has found a workaround themselves, so you can try this as well: If the customer on question wishes to post the details on what they did I'll leave it up to them. Below are the high-level steps

***The below procedure is not supported by VMware***Implement at your own risk***

1. Set the client installer to Windows 2000 compatibility mode
2. Get access to an MSI editor
3. Open the MSI installer with your editor and removed the setup routine which checks for a 64-bit platform
4. You should be able to install the client completely, with no errors

*****Above procedure is not supported by VMware******

Again using a VM in workstation is something that can alleviate the situation in the short term, so being "forced" to delay implementing a virtualization solution, which reaps tremendous benefits is not realistic, since you do have other options to manage the environment using a workstation VM.

Again I understand this is not the preferred solution and we will have support in the near future based on our own internal roadmap, which not only encompasses just getting a client to work, but also have the proper development and support processes available. Look for 2nd half of 2008 for this, which by the way fits perfectly into some of the previous comments about 64-bit workstations becoming commonplace in 2009.

Regards,

Andre Kemp
Sr. Product Marketing Manager - APAC

Iain,

Thanks for the reply. As for the GPF, this is what I was referring to a few posts back, about how we have run into issues with some of the components in the 64-bit host environment. Our client has changed significantly compared to previous versions, so that is one of the reasons it worked with no issues in previous releases. We have seen development issues with our new client on a 64-bit host, so due to other priorities the engineers put in the blocking issue to prevent installing the client.

It appears right now the most valid work around is to run a 32-bit VM until we have our 64-bit client available sometime 2nd half next year.

Regards,

Andre Kemp
Sr. Product Marketing Manager - APAC

dup

I also find the lack of 64-bit support rather short sighted. I suspect quite a few administrators run WinXP x64. WinXP x64 certainly makes testing VM configurations easier by running VMware Server and using the extra memory of your workstation (mine has 8GB). But regardless...

I find it a bit disconcerting that when given strong community feedback that "you've broken software with a mandatory upgrade" that the response was not "whoops, we'll put out a limited patch right away due to technical difficulties, and bring it up to full support in the next release", but rather has been "it shouldn't have worked in the first place, so you'll have to wait until we re-engineer it and release the new version in H2". We have to wait 6+ months for restored functionality??

Kudos for agreeing to fix the problem in the long term, but I really think we need a patch in the interim. Issuing a patch would also improve your credibility in the era of multiple Virtual software vendors. :-))

I agree Vmware should fix this immediately. I was slammed with this today after my VC 2.5 upgrade. If the client worked on x64 in v2.0 they shouldn't have disabled it in v2.5.

Schorschi,

Thanks for your comments. I guess short-sighted would be Vmotion, Storage Vmotion, 1st to offer vSMP, 1st to offer 64-bit guest support, 1st to offer shared memory model and many more. I've explained - in detail - the why, support is coming soon.

I don't agree at all with your MS comments as we support more MS operating guest's than anybody - including experimental support for Windows 2008.

Market forces and resources always have an impact on the development roadmap.

Regards,

Andre Kemp
Sr. Product Marketing Mgr. Apac
--
Pardon the brevity, sent from my handheld