1. A computer-implemented method for selecting pre-provisioned virtual machines (VMs) to process workload requests in a networked computing environment, comprising: receiving a workload request in a computer storage medium; identifying a set of software programs needed to process the workload request; selecting a particular set of VMs from a pool of pre-provisioned VMs having the set of software programs in the networked computing environment, the particular set of VMs being selected based on: a length of time to install the set of VMs; a probability of the set of VMs being in demand by other workloads while the workload request is being processed, and the set of VMs having a highest quantity of VMs in the pool that are partially pre-provisioned at a time of the workload request; installing the particular set of VMs; and processing the workload request using the particular set of software programs in the set of VMs; wherein selecting of the set of software programs further comprises: looping through all of the pre-provisioned VMs having some combination of the set of software programs; calculating times associated with traversal paths for each combination; and selecting the particular set of VMs based on the shortest time associated with a traversal path indicating a shortest length of time to install the set of VMs.