VMware Player: Run Windows Server 2003 as guest?

[PingSpike]

I'm a bit of a noob when it comes to virtualization and the WMware website seems kind of vague about the capabilities of their free player product. I gather that WMware Server (which is free) is no longer supported and required a Server host OS to begin with. I'm just wondering if what I'm planning to do is possible and/or a good idea. I have a small home server running a celeron G540 with H61 chipset, 8GB ram.

What I'd like to do is:
Install XP x64 as host OS
Then install VMWare Player with
Windows 2003 Server as a guest OS running WSUS
And possibly one other Windows or Linux OS as a guest in the future but no immediate plans for that.

Later I might want to run Windows 2008 Server but no immediate plans for that.

Are there any networking considerations I'm not aware of? I'll probably store the WSUS data on the host OS and setup a network share since I feel that would be easier to backup.

 

[Snoop]

Your plan should work fine. Networking should be no problem, I would use bridged settings for the VM and it should function like any other pc within your lan.

I have a box (Athlon X4, 12gb ram)with a base windows 7 install. I run VMware workstation with one Server 2008 guest running SQL and IIS and a Win 7 guest to test applications and give others remote access to both test clients and the SQL server. Everything is scripted so when the host OS starts, it has a timeout then launches the VM's.

The only reason I went with this setup over running ESXI (which is likely a better solutions) is that with the Windows host, backups of my VM's are easy. I have a backup client which ships out the VM's nightly, and I also have a backup set (two weeks worth) in case somethings gets corrupted within a nightly backup.

 

[tynopik]

http://partnerweb.vmware.com/comp_guide2/search.php?testConfig=16&deviceCategory=software