This occurs in both vmplayer and vmware server.
I created a vm with windows, to boot off of a cdrom image (both manually using vmplayer, and through the vmware server wizard). After starting the vm ... nothing happens. The vm is running, and cpu usage spikes to 90%, but it never gets anywhere. Going to the summary tab for the vm continuously shows it as "starting".
This is on Ubuntu 6.10, and compiled 64 bit. Other people have had similar problems caused by the wrong version of libdbus, but that is not the case here.