VMware Workstation Pro has always been 32-bit?!?

The Broadcom forum does not appear to encourage idle chitchat, so I'll ask here.

They say, "There is no 64-Bit download [of VMware Workstation Pro] for Windows; it is always installed into C:\Program Files (x86)\."

Does it not seem odd that, in the world of Type 2 hypervisors, where everyone is concerned about performance, Workstation Pro would be a 32-bit program?

I'm sure there's some architectural reason why it has to be that way. I just don't recall seeing that widely discussed as one of the reasons why Workstation would underperform a Type 1 hypervisor.

Is it a 64-bit process when you run it though? The convention of 64-bit code in Program Files and 32-bit in PF(x86) is just that, a convention. It’s not a rule.

pseymour said:

Is it a 64-bit process when you run it though? The convention of 64-bit code in Program Files and 32-bit in PF(x86) is just that, a convention. It’s not a rule.

Click to expand...

Yeah - this is almost certainly the case. Many apps still install in the x86 folders even though 64bit.

Main reason is the folders were hard coded to x86 when 32bit but when 64bit came out, programmers were "lazy" and still used same folders instead of newer folders.

Makes absolutely no difference which folder sets are being used.

The simple and logical answer would be: "If VMWare wasn't fully 64-bit, how could it possibly run W11 inside VMware?"

If you're ever in doubt, sigcheck from the Sysinternals toolkit can report whether an executable is compiled as 64-bit. There's a mix of mostly 32-bit and some 64-bit executables in the VMware folders.

I have noticed this a long time ago but still, good question.
In short:
The UI is 32bit while the hypervisor itself is 64bit.
A 32bit executable can run / invoke a 64bit executable, so it makes sense that the UI will launch the hypervisor core when a VM is started.