Hi 11AI,
We support the latest Intel processors, but we do not require one of the latest Intel processors. I am happily running Workstation 11 on a six year old Core 2 Duo laptop and Core 2 Quad desktop, for example (both on 64-bit operating systems). Workstation 11 added support for the newest processors, but as far as I know we did not remove any support for older processors.
We did however remove support for 32-bit host operating systems, so Workstation now requires that you have a 64 bit host operating system. It is extremely difficult to write a large, complicated and system-level piece of software to suit the severe constraints of 32 bit operating systems. As the capabilities of VMware Workstation expand, the 32-bit limitations become ever more problematic for us. And it seems that very few Workstation users are still running it on 32 bit operating systems... nowhere near enough demand to justify the significant development and test burden of maintaining 32 bit OS compatibility.
If you can't upgrade your host OS on your existing PC at this time, you can continue using Workstation 10 until you have an OS upgrade path available.
Cheers,
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Darius