Well,
I setup a VM running Ubuntu 16.04 to mine Steem, I follow this guide:
https://steemit.com/steem/@pfunk/guide-maximize-your-mining-hashrate-in-windows-by-mining-steem-in-a-vm
I personally use Oracle VirtualBox so that's what I used instead of VMWare.
I originally attempted to use the Windows 64-bit client but it would crash when ever I would set miner-threads in config.ini to anything, Steemd ran as long as the miner-threads was commented out.
So if you plan on mining on Windows I recommend just following the linked guide above.
Let me know if you have any questions. I would be happy to help.
