Since the vmware virtual machine drivers are pretty standard I don't see any technical reason for a preinstalled image not to be portable.
Although the above situation is obvious, I didn't find any preinstalled vmware image for Ubuntu.
Is there a trusted free vmware image or an OVF image with Ubuntu preinstalled?
Note: OVF image works with most of the players!
There is an official place where ubuntu distributes it's cloud images (including ovf format):
https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/
Ex, for 14.04 (scroll to page bottom): https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/trusty/current/
Seems the same question's already been asked on SuperUser - Where can I find Ubuntu Desktop releases on a vmdk
The following is the accepted answer:
I have not found any official ubuntu website distributing vmdk's.
According to http://www.vmware.com/appliances/directory/
very few suppliers of ubuntu desktop on vmdk exist (3 to be exact).
This seems to be focused on vm creation and distribution, and for now I consider this the de-facto website to go to for ubuntu desktop vmdk's: http://vmplanet.net/
These guys seem to have vm creation and distribution as a side-project to their main line of business: http://www.quotrader.com/
http://www.bitconstructor.com/
but the highest-voted answer is as follows:
You can find many VMs on VMware's site.
Open the site and go to "Virtual Appliances"; Ubuntu LTS 11.4 is one of the many images there.
The newest Ubuntu 11.04 VMware appliance starts out of the box with a desktop looking like Gnome 2.x, but can be transformed to start the Unity desktop from Ubuntu. Contrary to the basic Ubuntu 11.04 image this one has the latest VMware Tools installed.
Note: The VMware's site also seems to have Ubuntu 12.04, both desktop and server versions but it's the VMWare store and you have to buy it.
The OP also adds:
just make sure you have installed the latest vmware player so you don't have problems like I had with vmplayer not being able to run an virtual image made with a newer version.
Hyper V has some Ubuntu presets see Run Ubuntu virtual machines made even easier with Hyper-V Quick Create
The VMWare tools for Fusion-5 doesn't work on Ubuntu 14.04LTS. VMware is recommending using Fusion-6 to build a Ubuntu 14.04 image and using it on Fusion-5. Hence finding a pre-built image with VMware tools installed would be great.
I found one, which seems to be working: http://www.trendsigma.net/vmware/ubuntu1404t.html I'm just not sure of the source.
If you determine that a ready-made image is not available, installing either the server or desktop iso in VMWare Player is exceptionally easy, at least from my limited experience. On a Win7 Pro, 32-bit, laptop the Easy Install (most likely a part of VMWare tools) made the installation happen with minimal keyboard work on my part. About all I needed to supply was my username and password.
Your mileage may vary.
Good luck
