WatiN Timeouts in Windows Server 2008 IE8

Question

I've created some automated tests using WatiN and MBunit and they run fine on my machine (running Windows 7 and VS 2010).

However, when I try running them on a virtual machine which is running Windows Server R2 2008 and IE8 my tests consistently timeout unless I am clicking into the window periodically.

IE is not in protected mode. Also each time a browser is launched the WatiN "BringToFront" method is called, but it doesn't seem to actually bring the browser to the front, it always opens behind Visual Studio 2010.