So went round and round with this one, and finally found the answer on expertsexchange (no thanks to a couple of vmware KB articles) http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1014454
The answer is a crypic change of server.xml
For 64 bit machines there is a Windows update and for Windows XP 32 bit there is a bit of a hack to perform. . (Windows XP 64 bit and Windows 2003 - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948963) I would recommend that you back up the server.xml file that is edited for this Windows XP 32 bit hack - I would recommend to stop the VC service first 1) on the vCenter Server machine go to %PROGRAM_FILES%\VMware\Infrastructure\tomcat\conf 2) open the "server.xml" file 3) Look for the following XML element: <Connector port="8443"...></Connector> 4) Modify the 'ciphers' attribute to the following value: ciphers="SSL_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_MD5, SSL_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA, TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA, TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA, TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA, SSL_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA, SSL_DHE_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA, SSL_DHE_DSS_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA" 5) Restart the vCenter server service
Michael Ellerbeck 
I don’t usually comment on blogs, but this was incredibly helpful! For anyone else using the Linux appliance and a 32-bit XP client, the server.xml file is located under /usr/lib/vmware-vpx/tomcat/conf/. If I might ask, where did you find the list of ciphers?
Just a bunch of googling until I finally hit on the cipher list.
Thanks alot, I’ve searched the hole week, nothing other helps (e.g. fqdn, port stuff etc.)
Changed the ciphers and works like a charm 🙂