VMware Workstation runs as an application (as well as a service if you want) on any supported host OS. Please take a look at VMware Compatibility Guide: Guest/Host Search for supported host operating system to see which is also best supported for your laptop. Virtual machines are consist of a couple of files which are stored on your native file system (i.e. NTFS) and it's only within the guest where different file systems come into play. Regarding partitioning, it actually depends on what else you want to install so make sure the OS partition size is sufficient. Personally I would go with 2 partitions, one for the OS and applications and one for the VMs.
André