One of the little known features but, at least I think so, the coolest gems in the last few versions of VMware Workstation is Unity Mode.
Access applications within virtual machines as if they were part of the host operating system desktop with “Unity” view
Two perfect use cases:
- In most big corporate environments - Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft Outlook are the de-facto tools used for email. If you are like some of those who refuse to use Microsoft OS - then you have to resort to using Evolution, which does not always work well.
Unity to the rescue, I can run whatever OS I would like and run a windows virtual machine with for running Outlook, and all I need is to activate Unity and you will have an window (almost like any other) in you Linux OS. - Some organizations (do use Exchange) did not move to LCS or OCS. Why? A number of reasons. Too much money for the CAL's. No need. It works. So for one we are still using Windows Messenger 5.1 for our internal messenger software. Starting from Windows Vista - every time you open a chat window and the screen scrolls, the Application crashes. This has been documented numerous amounts of times on the web, with no solution.
Unity to the rescue. I can now run Windows Vista / 7 /Server 2008 and have a VM with my Messenger client open without having to run another whole desktop for this purpose
A short demo about Unity
And yeah yeah, I know. Time to change the Messenger client, I hear ya!