FWIW, (which is probably not much)

NetBSD/i386 -current runs fine under vmware 1.0 for NT and Windows 2000.
It is necessary to use pccons or pcvt as wscons hangs.  The 1.4.1 INSTALL
floppy also worked fine, though I just used it to install an ELF snapshot.
Under the Linux 1.0 release, the NetBSD 'le' driver consistently reported
device timeouts.  This problem appears to be gone.  Because of the bridged
nature of the vmware ethernet device, performance is not stellar, but is
definitely adequate for playing around with an OS.

I also was abled to build a 'netboot.com' for the AMD PCNet-PCI, and it
successfully netbooted in a virtual machine running dos.

Anyway, thought it might be of interest to those out there trapped in
a M$ world.  You can now easily run NetBSD on your Windows "only" machine,
and I believe the home use license is somewhat reasonably priced.

Some interesting info from my test machine:
PII 266
128MB RAM
Internal 6GB EIDE 
Adaptec 2940UW
5 x 4GB Micropolis 3243 (Fast SCSI2)
3Com 3c905TX

Window$ 2000 Professional RC1 is on the 6GB EIDE.  The five 4GB
SCSIs are striped, and hold a 2GB vmware volume for my virtual
NetBSD machine. 

Bonnie reports:
              -------Sequential Output-------- ---Sequential Input-- --Random--
              -Per Char- --Block--- -Rewrite-- -Per Char- --Block--- --Seeks---
Machine    MB K/sec %CPU K/sec %CPU K/sec %CPU K/sec %CPU K/sec %CPU  /sec %CPU
vmware    100  3004 35.0  2928 13.6  3146 26.8  6476 89.2  9540 47.5 157.5 20.3

Dhrystones 2.1 reports:
Microseconds for one run through Dhrystone:    1.7
Dhrystones per Second:                      578703.7

ttcp transmit reports:
ttcp-t: 16777216 bytes in 43.31 real seconds = 378.33 KB/sec +++
ttcp-t: 2048 I/O calls, msec/call = 21.65, calls/sec = 47.29
ttcp-t: 0.0user 42.9sys 0:43real 99% 0i+0d 0maxrss 0+2pf 1+466csw

tcp receive reports:
ttcp-r: 16777216 bytes in 42.23 real seconds = 387.97 KB/sec +++
ttcp-r: 2159 I/O calls, msec/call = 20.03, calls/sec = 51.12
ttcp-r: 0.0user 22.4sys 0:42real 53% 0i+0d 0maxrss 0+2pf 36+229csw

And lastly, dmesg reports:
NetBSD 1.4K (VMWARE) #0: Tue Sep 21 13:08:07 EDT 1999
    root@neo.whirlpool.com:/usr/src/sys/arch/i386/compile/VMWARE
cpu0: family 6 model 3 step 4
cpu0: Intel Pentium II (Klamath) (686-class)
total memory = 32384 KB
avail memory = 28140 KB
using 430 buffers containing 1720 KB of memory
mainbus0 (root)
pci0 at mainbus0 bus 0: configuration mode 1
pci0: i/o enabled, memory enabled
pchb0 at pci0 dev 0 function 0
pchb0: Intel 82439TX System Controller (MTXC) (rev. 0x01)
pcib0 at pci0 dev 7 function 0
pcib0: Intel 82371AB PCI-to-ISA Bridge (PIIX4) (rev. 0x08)
pciide0 at pci0 dev 7 function 1: Intel 82371AB IDE controller (PIIX4)
pciide0: bus-master DMA support present
pciide0: primary channel wired to compatibility mode
wd0 at pciide0 channel 0 drive 0: <VMware Inc. Virtual Hard Drive>
wd0: drive supports 64-sector pio transfers, lba addressing
wd0: 1999MB, 4334 cyl, 15 head, 63 sec, 512 bytes/sect x 4095630 sectors
wd0: 32-bits data port
wd0: drive supports PIO mode 4, DMA mode 2
pciide0: primary channel interrupting at irq 14
wd0(pciide0:0:0): using PIO mode 4, DMA mode 2 (using DMA data transfers)
pciide0: secondary channel wired to compatibility mode
pciide0: secondary channel ignored (disabled)
unknown vendor 0x15ad product 0x0710 (miscellaneous display) at pci0 dev 15 func
tion 0 not configured
le0 at pci0 dev 16 function 0: PCnet-PCI Ethernet
le0: address 00:50:56:81:13:06
le0: 8 receive buffers, 2 transmit buffers
le0: interrupting at irq 9
isa0 at pcib0
com0 at isa0 port 0x3f8-0x3ff irq 4: ns16550a, working fifo
com1 at isa0 port 0x2f8-0x2ff irq 3: ns16550a, working fifo
com2 at isa0 port 0x3e8-0x3ef irq 5: ns16550a, working fifo
pcppi0 at isa0 port 0x61
sysbeep0 at pcppi0
isapnp0 at isa0 port 0x279: ISA Plug 'n Play device support
npx0 at isa0 port 0xf0-0xff: using exception 16
vt0 at isa0 port 0x60-0x6f irq 1
vt0: generic, 80 col, color, 8 scr, mf2-kbd, [R3.32]
vt0: console
fdc0 at isa0 port 0x3f0-0x3f7 irq 6 drq 2
fd0 at fdc0 drive 0: 1.44MB, 80 cyl, 2 head, 18 sec
isapnp0: no ISA Plug 'n Play devices found
apm0 at mainbus0: Power Management spec V1.2
apm0: A/C state: on
apm0: battery charge state: no battery
biomask 4040 netmask 4240 ttymask 4242
boot device: wd0
root on wd0a dumps on wd0b
root file system type: ffs
...

-Andrew
-- 
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Andrew Gillham                            | This space left blank
gillham@whirlpool.com                     | inadvertently.
I speak for myself, not for my employer.  | Contact the publisher.