VMware

[Patton Echols]

This is not really a Ubuntu specific question, but a pointer in the 
right direction would be great.  I've looked around the web about VMware 
but I think my questions are so basic that the answers are assumed . . . 
or I could be looking in the wrong places.

I read an article recently about maintaining a network of windows 
desktops by running linux on each desktop and then using Vmware to load 
windows on each one from a single windows XP image maintained on a server. 

I volunteer with an educational non profit that maintains a computer 
lab.  The lab computers are quite old (and have been "ridden hard") and 
need replacement.  Because of the need to reimage the drives when 
students break the windows install, our computer guy says it is 
important to keep a number of identical boxes, rather than replace them 
as needed the way non profit organizations are likely to do.

So here is the two questions:

I assume that using Linux to autoload vmware and then a windows image at 
boot time would result in much lower maintinance.  If the windows 
"install" were broken, a reboot fixes it.  Since the students would 
presumably have no access to the OS, the linux installs would require 
less maintenance too.  Is that right?

Since the windows image would load on top of vmware, the windows image 
would not be hardware specific, if we ended up with several different 
system configurations, they would all work with the master XP image.  Is 
that right too?

Thanks again.