I'm running Workstation 8.0.1 build-528992 on Fedora 16 XFCE x86_64 with kernel 3.1.2-1.fc16.x86_64. Since upgrading from workstation 7 I've noticed that it takes considerably longer to start the Workstation client and to start VM's. The VM's don't POST or even start their boot process for about 20 seconds. Once they're running, everything is normal and perform as expected.
I've tried tailing the vmware.log of a particular VM when waiting for it to start, but nothing is logged until the machine actually POST's.
Is there a known problem with this configuration; or is there some logging I can monitor to discover more about what is causing this?
Oh, I probably should've mentioned that I've disabled all the phone-home features.
Nothing to do with the VMware workstation setting that specifies how long between VM power ups? I'm asking only because by default it is 20 seconds, and you mentioned 20 seconds. Spooky.
This was apparently related to the network I was on. As soon as I was off the corporate network, my performance issues disapperaed. (I did have update checks disabled.)