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Record/Replay in VMware Workstation 6.0 beta 3

Wednesday, 14 February 2007 by Michel Roth

VMware have released an update to their beta of VMware Workstation 6 in the form of beta 3. VMware Workstation 6.0 Beta 3 introduces a new feature called Record/Replay. Perhaps you are wondering (like me) what this exactly means and what you could use this for. Well, it turns out that Christian Hammond has an answer.

"Workstation 6 beta 3 is the first release to support our new Record/Replay functionality that we mentioned at VMworld. Essentially, it allows for making a recording of (almost) everything that happens to a VM between the time you hit Record and the time you hit Stop. This is not a movie recording, but more of an execution recording. You can play it back however many times you like.

What is this good for? Well, have you ever tried testing a program only to encounter a bug that you just can�t reproduce? Maybe there was some memory corruption that happened under some specific case that you just can�t seem to diagnose. Or maybe it�s a network packet that came in in some form that your application didn�t expect. Under normal circumstances, you�d have to do a lot of guesswork in order to find out what exactly happened. Far too often, it�s just too hard to reproduce the bug and it goes unfixed for some time.

Now imagine instead that you�re testing the program in Workstation and, before your testing, you hit Record. You attempt the test and the program crashes in some weird manner. No problem. Hit Stop and replay the recording. Just before the crash occurs, stop the playback and attach a debugger. Messed up? Didn�t find the cause? Replay that recording again.

It should be pointed out that these recording logs take up a lot of space, so you don�t want to keep too many around. Also, the feature is very experimental, so don�t be surprised if there are problems. Some things are not yet supported, like 64-bit guests, Virtual SMP, and certain devices (USB, for example). We plan to change the UI around a little bit, and it�s likely that future Workstation releases will improve the usability and usefulness of this feature."

He goes on to discuss the other new features of VMware Workstation 6.0 beta 3:
� CrossTalk Communication Infrastructure (Experimental)
� Eclipse plug-in for Integrated Virtual Debuggers
� Descheduled Time Accounting
� WYSE Multimedia Redirector

If this made you work up an appetite, you can order here.