There are a few steps you should take - while your previous version of VMware Workstation is still on your computer and before you install VMware Workstation 4 - to ensure the best possible upgrade experience.
If you plan to use virtual machines created under VMware Workstation 2, 3 or a prerelease version of VMware Workstation 4, be sure they have been shut down completely before you remove the release you used to create them.
If the virtual machine is suspended, resume it in the earlier release, shut down the guest operating system, then power off the virtual machine.
Note: If you attempt to resume a virtual machine that was suspended under a different VMware product or a different version of VMware Workstation, a dialog box gives you the choice of discarding or keeping the file that stores the suspended state. To recover the suspended state, you must click Keep, then resume the virtual machine under the correct VMware product. If you click Discard, you can power on normally, but the suspended state is lost.
If you plan to use existing virtual machines that have disks in undoable mode, commit or discard any changes to the virtual disks before you remove the release you used to create them.
Resume or power on the virtual machine in the earlier release, shut down the guest operating system, power off the virtual machine and either commit or discard changes to the disk in undoable mode when prompted.
As a precaution, back up all the files in your virtual machine directories - including the .vmdk or .dsk, .vmx or .cfg and nvram files - for any existing virtual machines you plan to migrate to VMware Workstation 4.
Virtual machines created under Workstation 2 must have their virtual hardware updated before they can run under Workstation 4. Once they are updated, they cannot be run under Workstation 2.
You have a choice with virtual machines that you created under Workstation 3 or updated to use the Workstation 3 virtual hardware.
There is a key precaution you should take when you remove VMware Workstation 2 or 3 - or a prerelease version of VMware Workstation 4 - and install VMware Workstation 4.
The installation steps for your host may require that you run an uninstaller to remove a previous version of VMware Workstation from your machine.
On a Windows host, the uninstaller may offer to remove licenses from your registry. Do not remove the licenses. You can safely keep licenses for multiple VMware products on the computer at the same time.
On a Linux host, the license remains in place. You do not need to take any special action. You may safely leave the license where it is.
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