xhost and vmware

i noticed that when trying to run programs under other names that unless i run xhost + i can't get the program to run. anyone know what group xhost is? who owns it? How i can get control of it. also want to get a non-root ownership of the ide drives, ability to access every drive and partition except the linux swap. i want to run vmware from some other account than root -- --- The Bat!v1.52f+SW0.9.8+SuSE72