It's been a while, but did you set up NAT inside vmware? It turns out you can't use iptables-based NAT on vmware; you have to change /etc/vmware/vmnet8/nat/nat.conf.

In the [incomingtcp] section, you should have a line like this:

14238=192.168.3.3:14238

where 192.168.3.3 is the VMware IP address of your WinXP VM. Then restart vmware.

When I did this, I got a (as in "one") successful hotsync over TCP. Then, for reasons I completely don't understand, Garnet decided to start using UDP instead. I added a similar NAT line for UDP and port 14237, but all I get is a three packets in each direction and then it quits on me. I'm still working on that.

If anybody knows how to get Garnet to only use TCP, I'd be most appreciative...