Note: if you are intimidated by geekspeak look away from this post.

I spent the better part of a few hours this morning trying to figure out why I could not get a virtual appliance to boot on one of my VMware Server boxes. I would start the guest OS, but would get nothing but a blank screen in the Console.

The why:
The problem is due to a permissions error; in order to see the machine through the console the .vmx config file must be executable for the user you’re starting it as.

The how:
Log into your VMware Server machine and find the directory where the virtual machine you are starting is located at. Find the .vmx file and chmod it so that it’s executable (ex. chmod 755 vmachine.vmx).

Thats it!