I have seen lots of threads regarding this, but no recent ones. This problem hit me a few months ago. Only solution was to rebuild the host from scratch and re-install latest VMWare server 2.0 build. Am running Win2k8 X64 Std as the host, latest build of VMWare Server 2.0 122956 - 10/29/08. Following the updates from the most recent patch Tuesday on my host system, none of the virtual machines now get past 95% on startup as indicated on the VMWare Infrastructure Web Access interface. I am not positive that it is a Windows patch that is causing this, but very probable, I suppose. However, if the virtual machine has already been created, it will actually finsihing startup in the background, and I can log into it remotely using SSH or RDP, as it may be. But I cannot pull open a console on these VM's, which means I cannot build any new ones! As a workaround Is there any way I can launch a console manually with the vmware-vmrc.exe executable? Anyone else having this problem? Recent threads show problem to be on WIndows x64 hosts. I am running on XP x64 as well and am not having this problem.
FYI, I uninstalled the last dozen Windows updates and the problem remains.