I use VMware Server (or VMware Workstation) every day.

And while I really like the performance and functionality of VMware Server, and love the price, I'm genuinely unimpressed with the quality of the VMware Tools that come with VMware Server (compared to those for VMware Workstation). Every time I install the VMware Tools for VMware Server on one of my VMs, I just can't interact with it anymore, because the performance becomes insanely choppy, and the mouse just becomes obscenely laggy.

So I typically run my VMs on VMware Server without VMware Tools installed. Only, when you do that, you miss out on a LOT of killer functionality - like the ability to 'see' a VM's IP addy from the VMware Server web interface:

I initially thought that the crappy 'chugginess' I was experiencing came from the fact that I typically 1) Remote Desktop in to my Server, 2) Open up the VMware Server Console on my Server in a Remote Desktop window, etc. (Even though the server is only a foot away, my thought was that all of the indirection through 'remoted' windows and such might have been the culprit.) Imagine my surprise then when I was logged in directly on my server, and kept seeing the exact same chuggy/crappiness in the UI when trying to manipulate VMs in the VMware Server Console.

Today, however, I decided to use my brain, and decided that I wanted all the goodness, and none of the crap. So I used the OPTIONS when I installed VMware Tools:

I'm not sure WHICH of those two 'drivers' is the culprit, but leaving them both out has done the trick. I get all of the shiny goodness, with none of the bloat. (I should use my brain more often... )

(It still sucks that you can't drag/copy files from to/from your VMs/Host with VMware Server as you can with VMware Workstation (or Virtual PC)... but that's another issue.)