If your stuck in text mode of the whislter setup and vmware prompts you saying the guest os is putting the cpu in a shutdown state. Just click edit your virtual machine settings select processors and for prefer mode select Intel VT-x or AMD-v option. Also dont forget to grab the SCSI vmware driver as well.

Are you talking about when your entire system locks up whenever you use Vmware? I can't stand Vmware. Even there support was useless lol.

Maybe it's your BIOS Settings and check the date and time too.

Yes when it freezes up in text mode when it says windows setup is starting. But the above post is the fix. I love vmware. Before I figured out how to fix this issue with whisler I tryed using other visualization apps and came up with the same error. And the date wasn't the issue I wish that was because I wouldn't of wasted so much time if that was the case.