VMWare - Extending the boot time of virtual machines to get to BIOS for example

To make it easier to access the BIOS setup screen, edit the virtual machine's configuration (.vmx ) and append one of these options:

bios.forceSetupOnce = "TRUE"

This forces entry to the BIOS setup at startup.

bios.bootDelay = "xxxx"

This adds a delay to the initial POST screen, showing it for longer and giving you more time to access the BIOS setup, where xxxx is the number of milliseconds to show the POST screen. (There are 1000 milliseconds in a second.)

Source:
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1004129