I downloaded Tomcat 5.0.5 this morning and installed using the auto-installer. I then attempted to start and configure the Tomcat server from the Start/Programs/Apache Tomcat 5.0 location and got no response. I went to the Services program within Control Panel/Administrative Tools and attempted to start the service from there. I got the following error: Header: Microsoft Management Console Body: Error 1053: The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion. I've done warm and cold reboots and also changed the User and System environment variables to point to the new location (and then did a cold reboot) without success.
This works for me (and others). I won't be able to help unless you give steps to reproduce. The more likely is that your VM is incorrectly setup.
Yes, that was the problem. Thanks!