yep, similar to your Windows 10 and GeForce GTX…
sure.
VMWare Player is totally free for non-commercial use.
I am running Windows 7 in a virtual machine. Note that you still have to have a valid Windows license in order to install it in VMWare.
I am running a dual-boot system (Windows 10 and Ubuntu). I very rarely boot into Windows; I use Linux 99% of the time. When I want to run SU, I launch VMWare running Windows 7 and run SU. That way I don’t have to reboot my system into Windows and I still have my Linux running for all the other apps I use.
1 Like
Thanks for your posts. I had been stuck on SU 2016 pro under Win7 under Virtualbox under Ubuntu 16.04 for almost a year and unable to upgrade. I thought I would have to get a new computer and use Linux and Win10 dual boot. I have now switched tfrom Virtualbox to VMware player and SU runs so much better than under VB! I was able to upgrade to 2017 and even 2018 pro in the last few days. All tests so far indicate that I will not need to use VB again and will not have to use Win10. Many Thanks.
1 Like
I couldn’t get Sketchup 2017 Make to run in Virtual Box, but I can get it to work in VMware following these instructions: drivers - No 3d support is available from the host, on all VMware guests - Ask Ubuntu
I find VMware to be overall faster than Virtual Box anyway.
Is this a violation of the SketchUp license? It specifically forbids running the software in a virtual environment but these days it is an open question what constitutes a virtual environment. Is a container a virtual environment? Not really. Is Linux Wine a virtual environment? Nope. Aren’t all modern OS processes isolated from real memory addresses and devices? Yep.
I don’t think running SketchUp in a VM is a license violation per se, it is just unsupported by Trimble. As in “if you encounter problems don’t expect us to help”.
Trimble SketchUp Pro License | SketchUp specifically states:
“You may not use or host the Software in a virtual server environment.”
That applies to hosting or running the app on a virtual server, not to an individual running it under a VM on their own computer.
2 Likes
What about the system that is becoming more common in the corporate environment, with a powerful server where every user has his/her own VM running their apps, using cheap laptops or even dumb terminals to run the user interface?
That is probably not allowed. I think the whole point behind the license restriction is that you avoid having multiple people using one license of the software because the VM tricks Sketchup into thinking it’s only being used once.
I attempted to run SketchUp Pro 2021 on an AWS WorkSpaces instance and it refused to run. WorkSpaces provides a Windows 10 environment but SketchUp gives the same “operating system is not adequate” error described here for Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2 - operating system is not adequate for running SU 2020. I ran Blender on the same host and it sees the GPU as an NVIDIA GRID K520. Hardware acceleration worked for both display and Cycles render.
If you have access to a straight Windows 10 machine, install it there and then copy the entire C:\Program Files\SketchUp\SketchUp 2021 directory to your target VM. Launch Sketchup.exe from that directory. You will see a warning that Sketchup doesn’t like your OS, but it will run just fine. Note: this is NOT the warning you inevitably get if you try installing sketchup. That’s not what you’re doing – you’re copying a finished install to your target machine. The warning pops up when you run the app for the first time. At least for me, that warning only appeared once.
The system that I once tested worked exactly like a bunch of separate PCs, no trickery was involved. Two users reserved two licenses from our network. The best part was that I could use it remotely, using my 3G phone to provide network access, with lightning-fast saves as the actual data never left the server room.