Lynn David Newton wrote:

> Another query for you VMware-experienced people out
> there ... What exactly is meant by a "virtual network"
> in this context?

I believe it's "the network seen by the virtual machine".

> It offers the choice of bridged networking (which I
> want) or bridged and host-only networking, about which
> it says "This allows for the sharing of files between
> the virtual machine and the host operating system." Is
> this referring to Samba or something?

Yup, Samba.  I've never allowed it to install Samba on a box I run
though, so I can't be more specific.

> I'm preparing to set up a virtual WinXPPro system. This
> system is going to have to serve as a bit more than a
> toy for me. I've used VMware for the last couple of
> years, but only sporadically, and I've always just used
> bridged networking, and have been able to transfer
> files between my virtual machine and my real one using
> ftp clients. And of course normal networking via IE,
> telnet, etc. all works just fine.

I've had really good luck with XPPro and W2KPro under VMWare Workstation
3.1.  I've always used bridged networking too.  FWIW, once you've got
(any) Windows in a reasonably stable state, I like to change the disk
type from "persistent" to "undoable" -- that lets you hit 'power off'
then 'discard changes' which is a lot faster (and more satisfying) than
a regular Windows shutdown.  (Think Harry Mudd and "Shut up, Stella!";
ancient Star Trek ref.)  

The downside is that if you've done a lot of filesystem changes it'll
take awhile to commit the changes.  Most of my Windows sessions are to
run specific tools that aren't available for Linux.
 
> I've got the whole hard-copy manual in front of me but
> don't seem to be able to find a satisfactory answer to
> the question.

Here's a link to Everything Network Related in VMWare; I like hypertext
:-)
http://www.vmware.com/support/ws3/doc/network_ws.html#1032738

Good luck,
Steve