Why do I have to pay for the upgrade to 14?

[briangideon]

So I had Workstation Pro 11 and it was working fine until all of a sudden a Windows 10 update black screened my guest. To fix the problem I updated to 12.5 in June for $150. Now, I'm learning that Windows 10 Fall Creator is not officially supported on 12.5. No big deal. I'll just download 14. Afterall every company on the planet has a 1 year grace period in which your eligible for new versions free of charge. You can imagine my surprise to see my cart stick at $150 after entering my license key. So is this just how things are? Do I need to expect to spend $150 every 4 months to use VMWare Workstation Pro if I choose the upgrade option?  I'm sorry if this is coming across as crass. I really don't mean for it to. But, can someone explain how these updates work?

1. If I purchase the version 14 upgrade today and version 14.5 gets released 4 months from now do I have to pay $150 to get it?

2. If I purchase the version 14 upgrade today and version 15.0 gets released 4 months from now do I have to pay $150 to get it?

3. How do things change if I pay the full price of $250?

4. Should I expect a yearly $250 "subscription fee" to stay current with the latest of version of Workstation Pro that offers support for the latest Windows 10 updates?

I'm asking because I'm trying to figure out if I should spend $250 now to avoid spending $450 over the next year so that a future Windows 10 update continues to be fully supported.

[parmarr]

Hello,

I can totally understand how frustrating that can get but see if the KB article below helps answer your questions, this article covers the points around the TGP program that runs everytime a new version of Workstation is released.

https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=20932...

[briangideon]

Thanks. That is helpful. So the "technology guarantee" appears to be between 30-60 days and does not differ between upgrade and full price purchase. So if they release version 15.0 to address a future Windows 10 update 2 months from now I'll have to spend another $150 to get my problem fixed on top of the $150 I would be spending today. Assuming a liberal 2-month technology guarantee policy puts my maximum risk at $900/year to use VMWare and be guaranteed that it will always work with the latest Windows updates. Admittedly that's incredibly unrealistic as no one would continue doing business under those terms forcing VMWare to fall more inline the industry standard. However, VMWare does make a great product so they could probably get by with this strategy if they didn't force the issue more than twice per year. In light of that I think a more realistic risk is $300/year. If the technology guarantee was inline with the rest of the industry (1-year) then I'd probably spend the $150 for each new version even if that meant doing so once per year. But, as-is, doing the $150 upgrade puts me at risk for near term buyer's remorse. So based on that I think it'll work better for me to upgrade only when it's absolutely necessary.

I wonder if they would entertain a $150/yr subscription service for those of us who don't purchase licenses in bulk?