I downloaded VMware Workstation from their site and got stuck at the activation code page as I didn’t have one. I keep checking my email but I’m not receiving anything from them apart from a confirmation of the username and password. Did a search of Google and someone else had the same problem 3 times. Someone did respond to him that they no longer send activation codes via email but it’s actually on one of their web pages.

I’ll have another go at that later. In the meantime I’ve been using Microsoft’s Virtual PC 2007 a bit more. I was thinking of having a play around with Sharepoint Server and that needed Windows Server so I installed a VM for Windows Server 2003 which installed OK. I immediately ran the Windows Update function and that couldn’t get a connection. I noticed that IE 6 when installed with Windows Server 2003 has the security settings set high so you can’t go anywhere without adding the URL as a trusted site. I added some sites to that list and of course it still didn’t work. Had a look at the hardware settings and there was no wireless adapter but there was the ethernet port so I plugged in a cable and was able to go visit the Windows Update site. That needed 43 updates. I then thought I’d see how the PC coped with another virtual machine running Vista Ultimate and also getting updates to itself. Lastly I created a new VM for Windows 2000 and at the same time as the updates for both VM’s were being downloaded I installed that operating system.

And it all worked, though a bit slow.