you better go back and read the licensing terms for Windows Server 2003... Using the Enterprise Edition, you may run up to four 2003 servers with no additional license, provided you're using 2003R2 EE as the host OS. With Datacenter, you have unlimited licenses, provided that you're using 2003R2 DE as the host OS. Any other scenario, and you're required to license each copy of 2003R2.

I have a T61 (6465-57U) and run VirtualBox on top of Ubuntu 9.04 to run instances of XP - it works really well for me, provided I stay away from 'seamless' mode. I only wish the T61 had a higher RAM cap. Performance-wise, though, it works pretty nicely.

that's BS - I use xen to host a mix of debian and Windows images, and the I/O performance is pretty good. VMWS is the 'option' if you want to have absolutely substandard I/O performance.

ugh, there sure are a lot of people throwing out 'use ESXi - it's free!'. ESXi only runs on certain hardware, so if you don't have that hardware, it's not even a valid choice. Real management of ESXi is not particularly wonderful without using VMWare's management software, and that's not free, as far as I know.
I agree that performance-wise, it's a better choice than VMWServer. But I don't think the entry point for ESXi is as low as xen or Citrix's XenServer. XS runs on a wider range of hardware than ESXi, and the 'basic' management tools are pretty good, and also free.

I agree with everything else you mention, though, so don't think I'm trolling your post. I read TFA, and wow... where to start?

I use xen to host a number of light- to medium-load VMs, and I've been very happy with the performance. Windows server with the paravirt drivers perform very welll.

"You lied to me, Edward! There is a Swansea!"

I agree with you 100% - I don't think it's necessary to credit the people who've worked under the collective GNU appelation (who are credited, as you mention, for each of their apps) for an OS that has been assembled from their parts by other people. Maybe soon we'll see Linux distributions with "Kernel provided by Linus Torvalds", though I don't think LT is the sort who needs these sort of accolades (disclaimer: I've never met the man personally, so I have no real idea). It reminds me of the nonsense a while back with OpenBSD and the OpenSSH project, which is something I think those interested in using open-source software can do without.
My post was a low-brow sort of jab at the free software people who feel it necessary to point out at every turn that I'm using "free" software provided by their good graces, social conscience, etc. I feel that some of these FSF supporters are without regard for the many open-source products that don't go along with the FSF's definition of "open", even though the product's source code is available for modification by parties various and sundry.

I thought that GNU/Linux users (let's use the politically correct idiom, since you mentioned OSS ideals) *did* follow the Hurd. That was the whole point, right? I mean, you (collectively) may not use the hurd kernel, but you (again, collectively) certainly use tools derived from or built for this totally free operating system... right? ;)

yeah, I have IIS 6 and WSUS 3 SP1 on 2k3R2, and have to recycle the worker processes constantly (every 5 minutes or so), or the w3wp.exe processes will redline. To give IIS6 due credit, I don't think the problem is with the w3wp.exe process itself - seems to be some BS with the way the WSUS app communicates with IIS. Every fix from MS issued so far has done nothing for the problem. Ah, well. I do remember the IIS4 days, unfortunately. At the company I worked for, the developers there had some reporting BS that used a Crystal Reports ActiveX and IIS to query a SQL Server 6.5 database that was populated from my 'medium iron' AIX babies running DB/2. Anyway, every morning there would be a loss of communication between the IIS processes and the SQL Server, and then the SQL Server would stop responding. The developers couldn't figure out why, or didn't want to dig too deeply, so they simply had the server admins recycle the box every morning when the last shift went home.

hahaha, well, i'm hoping they don't find out ;) Maybe I can weasel in a new developer workstation or something...

Well, I guess by some definitions the Pentium 4 / Pentium D processors would be considered 'newer' (november 2005 for the P4, 2006 for the Pentium D), but I wouldn't think that would be new for production hardware. Except for Intel's bargain bin stuff, even the Core 2 processors since Conroe have had VT support. Unless someone's interested in hosting a virtual server farm on a batch of used P2/P3 Proliants they picked up from eBay I don't think this isn't such a valid concern.

Hopefully he'll have better luck getting ESXi installed on his hardware than I did. My test server was on the list of 'supported' machines for ESXi, and it still wouldn't install.

Out of curiosity, what does one use to manage ESXi if you're not willing to shell out for VMWare Infrastructure? Does it have a web GUI management setup like VMWare Server?

not since Xen 5, actually.
Xen 4 was obnoxious, in that you could only use 1 or 2 cores, and were limited to 4GB of RAM with the free version.