VMware released a free player that allows you to run virtual

machines created by VMware Workstation, GSX, and ESX Server as well as

Microsoft virtual machines and Symantec LiveState Recovery disk formats. You

can download the free

VMware Player and a pre-built Browser Appliance

loaded with Ubuntu and Firefox.

You can browse my gallery which shows the VMware Player Installation on the Windows platform.

Once you have installed VMware Player and have downloaded the free Browser Appliance, you simply run VMware player and attach the .vmx image of the browser appliance as shown below in Figure A.


Figure A.

Once you choose the appropriate configuration file, your virtual machine (vm) will load. In this example, we are loading Ubuntu Linux as shown in Figure B and Figure C.


Figure B.


Figure C.

You can even take it a step further and visit the VMTN Virtual Machine Center to download additional pre-configured virtual machines from IBM Software, Oracle, BEA, MySQL, Red Hat, etc. Give it a try and let me know what you think.