This can be done easily with Vmwares own VCB client. Its free and works on ESX and the i versions.
Just download and install the VCB client on any windows server that can store the backup files and run a very simple script to backup the guests to local disk on the backup server
You need to use the vm converter program to restore an image
sample script:
you could reduce it down to one line if you dont want any logging or use an input file
@ECHO OFF
DEL e:\VCBbackups\logs\VCB.log
For /F %%a in (servers.txt) do (
DEL e:\VCBbackups\%%a /Q
RD e:\VCBbackups\%%a
)
For /F %%a in (servers.txt) do (
ECHO *** BEGIN %%a %DATE% %TIME% *** >> e:\VCBbackups\logs\VCB.log
vcbMounter -h <vcservername.domain -u a<login> -p <pwd> -a ipaddr:%%a -r e:\VCBbackups\%%a -t fullvm -m nbd -F 0 >> e:\VCBbackups\logs\VCB.log
ECHO *** END %%a %DATE% %TIME% *** >> e:\VCBbackups\logs\VCB.log
