Nobody seems to have this problem, but I just can't install the network driver for the Windows XP guest OS. Windows XP refuses the given drivers for some reason.
I'm running VMware Server 1.0.7-108231 under Debian Unstable and my VM is a physical Windows XP installation residing on a separate partition configured for dual-boot (hence not using VMware Server 2).
It took hours to install vmware-server successfully as I am using a 64-bit environment (no success with 32-bit chroot, so I resorted to using the 32-bit compatibility libs, applied any-any patch, compiled modules, got around libx11-6 bugs...). Then a couple of fixes were necessary to get Win XP running as a VM (set up separate hardware profile, etc and also it didn't like SCSI entries in the VM's .vmx and .vmdk files, so they were replaced with ide entries, finally product activation over the phone, as the network driver wasn't installed yet).
Apart from using a physical, already pre-existing Windows installation as a VM there's nothing fancy about my config. I chose default settings whenever possible and networking was set up for NAT and Host-Only. Of course the ethernet card is configured as connected in the VMware Server Console and set to use NAT - Windows finds the ethernet card, but no driver for it.
The guest OS is running fine and I installed VMWareTools successfully, but the Windows device manager stubbornly complains that no driver has been installed for the ethernet controller - and there is only one ethernet controller. I even copied the windows.iso file containing vmware tools (from /usr/lib/vmware-server/isoimages folder) into the guest and mounted it manually, then pointed the windows installer to the vmware-nic.inf and vmxnet.inf files, but without any luck.
I am at the end of my wits here... how tough can it be to get this working? Am I missing a simple download of the Windows XP network driver?
Any help will be greatly appreciated. It feels like I'm almost there, almost! :_|
Thanks, Ference.
PS: I've attached virtual machine config files.