I get your point.

Don't know much about vmware, with ms Vpc I can take image of the physical
pc with Symantec ghost 8 or ghost solution on to dvd(s), and restore into a
vpc vm. I just make sure before I take the image

    I run msconfig to suppress any non essential services
   for domain pc take  off the domain or sysprep to remove the security
machine id
   reboot
when restoring, make sure the vm is not connected to the same network so I
can avoid same name and ip trouble. That also allows me to  rename the vm,
change ip....

the job is easier for me because the PCs I deal with has C: as system drive,
d: as program drive, and data else where.

Normally total time is  only a couple hours and don't have to sit there all
that time either.  that can also  including custom tailoring the Vm instead.
For me that is faster than whole process of installing the xp, updating it
and than installing the .net, visual studio ... and get that updated

you probably can use acronis to do the imaging and restore job.