I am currently using VMware Workstation 5.0 to run WinXP Pro inside Mandriva 2006. Let me sum up my impression of Workstation... It rocks. But it doesn't rock enough to pay $200 for it. I would cough up $100 for it if I could get printing to work but that's another story. I am using the 30-day eval version. (Okay, that's enough of my review).

VMware Server is a free product. My question is this: Will VMware Server work like Workstation in this way: Install Server to install WinXP into Server and then run Server as the player on the same host computer (did I say that right)?

I enjoy not having to dual boot. I only need Windows to run 2 programs IE with autodesk and a deedplotting program. (I also play with Google's Picasa and Google Earth) Wine doesn't run the deedplotting program and I can't even begin to figure out the hacks needed to get IE installed and running in Wine - much less hope it will then run autodesk.

Has anyone tried to use VMware Server this way?

Thanks,