Finally got around to updating this thread. VMware workstation 6 has been GA for a bit, and the following is in that documentation (Start at Page 145). I have not checked to see if it is included in ESX 3.0.2 documentation.
In order to enable or disable Vmware Tools time sync, the .vmx file needs to be adjusted. In order to do this and have it take effect without a power off/power on operation, one has to do this from the guest.
There are two options for this. The first is to open the vmware tools icon in windows (or the vmware-toolbox X application in GNU/Linux) and select or deselect the time sync option.
The other, and what I was looking for at the start of this thread is the command line method.
For windows, use vmwareservice.exe for linux, use vmware-guestd. The command requires that you specify both the current and the future value correctly for this to work :
vmwareservice (or vmware-guestd) --cmd "vmx.set_option synctime " where 0 denotes FALSE and 1 denotes TRUE.
SO for example,
Windows:
enable VMware time sync where it was previously disabled:
vmwareservice --cmd "vmx.set_option synctime 0 1"
...and to turn it back off:
vmwareservice --cmd "vmx.set_option synctime 1 0"
GNU/Linux:
turn it on...
vmware-guestd --cmd "vmx.set_option synctime 0 1"
...and turn it back off:
vmware-guestd --cmd "vmx.set_option synctime 1 0"
