The story so far. Two days ago I installed Windows Server 2003 Standard R2 on a trial versions of the Mac VM Software called "Parallels" using the default Networking of accessing the Internet via the Mac's connection.

Yesterday I changed the networking so that it grabbed (no reconfig needed in Win 2003) a suitable address from my wireless network. It could still access the Internet but now it was in the same network as my Vista machine.

I still couldn't access the WSS site from either Vista or the Mac (non-VM) and while the Win 2003 Server could ping the Vista machine; it couldn't ping back. Looking through all the Parallels manual didn't help (although my earlier read had produced the idea to change the Networking so it wasn't completely wasted time).

So off to work on the bus (for a change) and time to wonder. It's probably nothing to do with Parallels and something (stupid!) that R2 does that the earlier Windows Server 2003 didn't do.

(Moans about why do Microsoft do these things were kept to a minimum as I really hate people who use the public newsgroups provided by Microsoft to slam Microsoft.)

Comes home to try to see if I can find anything. Can't find anything via Google so look at Services. Oh look, there's a "Windows Firewall" and it's running. At first glance it doesn't seem to be blocking anything but I'm getting bored with not being able to connect so it's time for the big hammer. I stop the Windows Firewall.

Now, the Mac's copy of Safari accesses the WSS server (using nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn); asks me for a name and password and then says it doesn't like servername. Ditto Firefox (on the Mac).

Well, a couple of months ago that would have stumped me, but in the meantime I know about Alternate Accessing Methods and I quickly generate a couple of Internet alternatives (http://nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn and http://nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn:portnumber for the two standard (port 80) and Central Administration sites; do a iisrest for luck and then try Safari and Firefox on the Mac again. This time they work.

Walk downstairs to the Vista portable (which has Office 2007 installed) and try there. It can access the WSS site as well.

So now I have a rather odd situation. A small MacBook with a small hard drive that includes a VM of Windows Server 2003 with WSS 3.0 installed. So that can travel with me and I can check Admin options etc. I can also check what people with Safari and Firefox can see (and not see).

Then at home I can use that same MacBook as my server and try out all the functionality that the combination of Office 2007 and WSS 3.0 can offer (and there I'll probably have more servers - such as MOSS - on USB drive-based VMs).

Not exactly what you would first think of, but much more interesting than running a second PC portable with the same amount of RAM and VMWare Workstation or VM Server or VPC I think you'll agree.