While setting up a new virtual machine, the New Virtual Machine Assistant offers these options.  What do we want to recommend for them?  Without specific testing, I'm inclined to use the defaults.

• Disk size.  Default = 20 GB.
• Allocate all disk space now - This option gives somewhat better performance for your virtual machine. However, if you allocate all the disk now, you will not be able to use the VMware Tools shrink disk feature later. Allocating all disk space now is a time-consuming operation that cannot be canceled, and requires as much physical disk space as you specify for the virtual disk. Default = No.

• *Split disk into 2GB files* \- Select this option if your virtual machine will be used in a hard drive with a file system that does not support files larger than 2GB.  Default = No.  Note: the Beta VMware Importer Tool splits disks into 2GB files by default\[[Notes on Using the Beta VMware Importer Tool|http://www.vmware.com/support/fusion/doc/importer_notes.pdf]\]

• Make your home folder accessible to the virtual machine - configure your home folder as a shared folder, so you can share files between the virtual machine and your Mac.  Default - Yes.
  • Can the virtual machine read, or read and write to the shared folder.  Default = Read.

What's the recommended settings for automatic updates in XP and Vista?  According to the MIT Windows Automatic Update Service page, the two types of installations either polls after 17 hours and installs the next 1 A.M. ( mitsus.reg ) or manual confirmation to install and reboot, polls after 17 hours ( mitsus-n.reg ).  My concern is that since virtual machines may not be running that often, and even less so over night, these updates would never be applied.  Is it possible to poll and install immediately?  That updates will be found and installed when the VM is started up.  Note - in Vista, it took me several reboots and launches of Windows Update for it to actually see and install any updates.