Vmware workstation and “dragging” vms to a new window

If you run vmware workstation under linux you can just grab the VM tab and drag it to a new window. Comes in real handy when working with multiple monitors or when you just want to alt tab. Now for some unknown reason this is NOT possible under windows. Yeah you read that right, a simple feature like this seems to be OS dependent. There are some threads out there with people asking exactly this question:

• http://superuser.com/questions/247208/how-to-make-vmware-workstation-use-multiple-windows-for-vms-instead-of-tabbed-di
• http://superuser.com/questions/282289/can-i-show-two-different-vmware-vms-on-monitor-1-and-2-on-my-multi-monitor-syst

But the answers are not entirely clear, seem a little bit cumbersome  or cause “in use” errors.

So here is the answer that imho actually works doesn’t cause errors and doesn’t require you to restart your VM:

• Click Edit->Preferences
• Select workspace in the left menu
• Check the option that says “Keep VMs running after Workstation closes”
• Close the tab of the VM you want to move
• Click File->New Window
• In the new window just use the library to open the VM

That’s it you can now open every single VM in a new window if you wanted to without errors. I admit it’s still a work-around until vmware decides to actually implement the much wanted feature of just dragging your VM out to a new window.