Workstation 8 with Studio 2.5

...does work, with some assumptions. The new Workstation 8 literally merges the Server product-line (ex-GSX) with the Workstation product line, that's called VMware Workstation-Server service. It supports autostart features and finally a usable remote management interface, by using another workstation as client. It also supports the workstation as a client of ESXi5 or vSphere5, but that's off-topic now.
So, this server-service runs on Linux64 at my box, and I'm using it as a build-host for my Studio 2.5 projects. On WKS7, You had to run the Workstation with #/usr/bin/vmware all the time You wanted to run a VM. That called for a vncserver of course. Now, WKS8 supports running VMs as a service. The issue is: if You try to build a Studio VM, You still have to run the Workstation GUI (on the vncserver for example), otherwise the build will fail. This limitation will probably disappear in the next version of Studio. Also, old build VMs stay in the WKS library, even after deleting their files, this worked in WKS7 better.

Studio updater

I am playing with VMware Studio 2.5 now (great stuff btw), and seem I found a strange bug.
I am using Workstation 7 on Linux64 as the build host, and I try to create an update repository. It builds the VM, but when updating the repo the following error message appears in the build log:

Unable to create directory at manifest
; shell-init: error retrieving current directory: getcwd: cannot access parent directories: No such file or directory
pushd: error retrieving current directory: getcwd: cannot access parent directories: No such file or directory
mkdir: cannot create directory `manifest': No such file or directory
It only occurs, when I choose not to build the ZIP archive, only OV*. Should test it on WKS8, but I guess it's a Studio problem. More to come later.