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I don't understand why you're trying to do routing on the VM host; the VMWare server handles that (apart from the host O/S). The host O/S has nothing to do with that (other than providing driver level interface to the VM for virtual hardware that it's interfacing to).

The class C address 192.168.0 with subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 will yield 254 host ID's on that network ID; 0 and 256 are reserved for network & broadcast IP addressing. The host ID's run from 1 through 255; given that host ID 1 is reserved (by convention) for the gateway, 192.168.0.100 is a legit host ID on the network 192.168.0.0.

I don't know what, if anything, intrinsic Win2k IP routing capability has to do with anything here. You're trying to implement NAT with the ROUTE command (that's just not right). Fundamentally all IP addresses boil down to MAC addressing. It doesn't matter how the IP addresses are assigned to particular nodes, i.e., APIPA, DHCP or static. What matters is that the gateway is aware of the nodes that exist on the network its serving. In most cases VM hosts will support multiple vm’s; this is especially true when running VM's on a laptop (where each vm needs a unique IP address on any arbitrary LAN). Given that laptops are portable, it is very desirable that a vmware network setup should have several key features:

All vm’s can communicate with each other
All vm’s can communicate with “host” OS
Host OS can communicate with “guest” vm’s
All vm’s can communicate with WAN (“internet”)
All vm’s IP’s can be resolved from WAN
All vm’s can resolve IP’s on the WAN.
X-windows can be launched from the vm’s
Above features are preserved on any external subnet hosting laptop hardware
Users at a client site ("foreign" subnet) should be able to connect remotely to your virtual network from their own desktops using, for example, Putty.

The means whereby the foregoing can be accomplished is via implementation of one of the following:

Bridged networking — Although bridged virtual machines use the physical network connections on the host system, each virtual machine is treated as an independent client on the network. As such it will obtain an IP address from the network's DHCP server, or will require a static IP address to be manually configured if DHCP is not used. Virtual machines using bridged networking will be able to communicate directly with both the host system and other clients on the network to which the host is connected.
Network address translation (NAT) — One or more virtual machines share the IP and MAC address of the host system for the purposes of communicating with the external network. Virtual machines are able to communicate with other clients on the network to which the host is connected, but will appear to those clients as the host system, rather than as individual network clients. This approach allows multiple virtual machines to operate using a single IP address. IP addresses are allocated dynamically to NAT based virtual machines by VMware Server's internal DHCP server. Communication with the external network can only be established by the virtual machine. It is not, therefore, possible for a client on the external network to initiate a connection with a NAT based virtual machine (although port forwarding may be configured to allow traffic to a particular port, such as HTTP traffic on port 80, to be directed to a specific virtual machine).
Host-only networking - Creates a private sub-net within the host for virtual machines for which no external network access is required or desired. Virtual machines configured with host-only networking can communicate directly only with the host system and virtual machines which are also members of the same host-only network. The virtual machines cannot, however, communicate with the network to which the host is connected. IP addresses are allocated to Host-only based virtual machines by VMware Server's internal DHCP server.

[source: VMware Server Virtual Network Architecture]

When a VM comes on-line, it needs to either obtain an IP address from somewhere, i.e., either static, or dynamically via APIPA or DHCP. DHCP can be either a dedicated server to that end, or a functionality of the router. Former case and latter case there is no negotiation; the IP is either declared by the node (static) or assigned to it (DHCP). In the case of APIPA there is negotiation between the gateway and the node until a unique network ID is established. It doesn't matter how the VM gets its unique IP address, but the VM must utilize one of the three aforementioned networking methods.

VMware Server networking 101

Don’t take this the wrong way.

I ONLY want answers to my questions, as posed.

I DO NOT want to spend alot pf time debating what the “perfect network config” is, or the theory behind IP addressing or whatever.

I NEED TO KNOW how Windows handles a packet if it gets plunked on his lap but he realizes it’s not for him.

Thanks, but I am not trying to set up some network so perfect my name would go down in history for it, and me, myself, and I am the ONLY user.

djf

Also, put out of your mind that we are talking about VMWARE in any way. What I will say is it is a “virtual machine” type application that the host communicates with through TUN/TAP.

Everything between the host and the virtual machine works perfect, I can FTP, I can TELNET, I can PING, I can see all of the virtual machines TCPIP ports from the host.

But I cannot see the virtual machine from any other machine on the same network as the host.