After a long period of time using VM with XEmacs I am now using VM with GNU Emacs 23.3.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600) of 2011-03-10 on 3249CTO
The VM version # is VM version is: 8.1.1 One difference that I noted was that with GNU Emacs the Summary buffer for my mail archive file was showing the sender information based upon what was returned by function "(user-login-name)". Investigating, I found that variable "mail-from-styles" was "angles" in the case of XEmacs and "default" in the case of GNU Emacs. Once I customized "mail-from-styles" to "angles" in the case of GNU Emacs, then the sender information in the Summary buffer for the mail archive file was from the variable "user-mail-address"--as desired. In XEmacs "mail-from-style" is given the default value 'angles in "sendmail.el". In GNU Emacs "mail-from-style" is given the default value 'default in "sendmail.el". In both cases I have customized "send-mail-function" as (quote smtpmail-send-it).
