I know Vista as a host OS is not supported, but I have seen many reports that it works.
For years I have run a Windows 2003 Server machine which is also an Exchange Server to synchronize the Outlook calendar/email on my home network. This machine also serves as a file server. In addition, this machine is also being used as a home PC for multimedia, video encoding, and gaming.
A home OS like Vista Ultimate would really be more appropriate since it supports the Welcome screen with one-click password-less sign-on, Media Center, Vista's Aero eye candy, and all the media-rich features of a home OS. However, I still want to use Exchange Server which requires 2003. My idea is to run Vista Ultimate and run a stripped-down Windows 2003 Server w/Exchange under VMware Server as a service. I think there is no question that this will work since VMware Server works on Vista despite being unsupported. However, I have a few questions:
1. Does running an OS as a service work in Vista under VMware Server? Ideally, I need the guest OS to automatically load when the machine boots up even when no user is logged in (sitting at Vista's "Welcome" screen).
2. I have read Bridging doesn't work in Vista and I would have to configure NAT. I'm not sure how NAT works in a VMware environment, which leads to my next questions:
a. Will I still be able to get into my Windows 2003 Server via Remote Desktop from my other networked machines if it is a guest OS?
b. Will the host OS MS Outlook be able to connect to the Exchange server in the guest OS?
c. Will host be able to see shared guest OS drives and vice versa?
3. Does VMware detect shutdown, S3 suspend, or hibernate events and is able to save state of the guest OS and resume upon restart?
4. When the host OS needs to be rebooted, is it possible to save the guest OS state and resume after restart, or does it have to be shutdown properly? I ask because it only takes a home OS like XP or Vista a few seconds to restart, but my 2003 machine takes a good 15-minutes because it has to shutdown and restart several services. It would be handy to be able to be able to save state, let the machine reboot, then resume state after VMware starts up again.