VMWare Server sucks!

At the office we use VMWare Server on a couple of different systems to run “appliance” based applications, the problem is every few months the Web interface suddenly screws up and all we get is 503 errors when attempting to login. I’ve searched high and low for the cause and solution to fix it, as far I can tell its occurs because the server randomly deletes or corrupts some important Tomcat related content. Then the only solution I’ve found to fixing this is  completely uninstall VMWare Server, remove all the licenses, reboot the system and then re-install VMWare server.

The last time this occurred, after re-installation, VMWare refused to accept my license key, even when I tried re-entering it I got errors stating its invalid, I fixed this by going into the registry and overwriting the Registry as follows -

To change the serial number:
Go to Run
Type in regedit
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE – Software – VMware, Inc.
Expand VMware, Inc.
Expand the subfolder named VMware Server
Go to License
Right click on Serial on the right window pane
Select modify and paste the new serial number/license key
Hit OK