Lesson 1: just Windows XP (including SP2), with no additional software installed takes up 3.37 GB on my hard drive (according to the properties of the C: drive). I had only assigned a 5 GB slot on my disk, which I guess is not enough if I also want to install some additional software, like the driver software for my video camera, palm pilot, web cam or digital camera, or Neverwinter Nights.

I'll try to somehow reduce the amount of space used, although I already 'Clean disk'-ed. I must be getting old; I do remember vividly how I paid a lot of money to get a 850 MB hard drive way back when. I guess 640 KB will be enough,...

Update (21:15) THe other lesson I learned: the VMWare Snapshot Manager does not like to run out of disk space while optimizing a snapshot tree. I hosed my installation of XP with it, since it keeps on telling me that the "virtual filesystem needs repair". Unfortunately, no clue as to how to repair it, or where to get the tool to do it. I guess I'll do a new install tomorrow: for today, I have had enough.