Question : VMware 4.0 VM unresponsive at console

I have a VMware ESX 4.0, build 208167, with 6 VMs on it.  I'm having a problem with one of the VMs that is a Windows 2003 Server Application Server where upon a reboot, the server has become unresponsive where I can't remote desktop into it, ping it, nor is it responsive at the console through the VSphere client.  

While looking at it through the client, the server sits at a CTRL-ALT-DEL prompt, and the arrow cursor periodically turns into an hourglass at times, indicating there is activity at the OS level.  So, I think this is a problem with the VM.  

I've rebooted it countless times; I'm about to downloading the latest cumulative update for ESX 4.0 and am going to try and find the Host Update Utility and patch the ESX installation to see if that helps.  But, other than that, I'm not sure where to begin for troubleshooting.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer : VMware 4.0 VM unresponsive at console

Make sure you do not have any illegal characters in any of the fields in the CSR. Illegal characters are [! @ # $ % ^ ( ) ~ ? > < & / \ , . " ']

The SBS wizard pulls company name exactly the way it was entered during initial setup and does not check or warn about these characters (ie. O'Reilly Inc.). A certificate generated from that CSR will fail to install with "The imported certificate does not match your Web site. Verify that you selected the correct certificate file, and then try again."

Extracted from: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc546059%28WS.10%29.aspx