This is getting a little over my head here, but I keep thinking it might be a security issue. I believe you indicated (or maybe I'm reading between the lines) that you aren't using Samba to connect to your LAN when you're running SuSE, but you are logged into your network when you launch VMWARE/Win2K. Maybe VMWARE/Win2K is routing through your LAN and picking up some security privilege that that isn't available trying to hit your WAN directly (bypassing the network). If all else fails, you might want to look at setting up Samba and joining your Linux box to the domain.
Greg Wallace
I am using samba for SUSE, and I rarely use VMWare except when absolutely necessary, like right now. I do log into the network with VMWare as well, but VMWare gets it's own IP address when I do. I should check to make sure that I am on the right domain though, as it changed when we changed servers. I cannot get back on the network until I get the default MTU value though. James W