Well, after all my trials and tribulations getting Slackware installed on my new whizzy box it turned out to be very easy to get vmware going.

I just followed the 'how to make it work on Slackware' detailed at:- http://www.cs.ucr.edu/~jbyrne/vmware.htm and, it just worked!

I'm now installing Windows XP professional in a window while I'm typing this - amazing! I've only installed Vmware Player but I think it will satisfy all my needs. I can create virtual machines for it at http://www.easyvmx.com/.

... and installation has completed, a working XP in a window on my screen - wonderful.

Now to really push things by installing Microsoft Access on it - that's the one Windows application I really need.