Without suggesting that this is a good idea...VNC provides a workaround to your problem. Run the server on your guest OS and the viewer on your host. If you can't get a crash test dummy box, VMWare is better than nothing, but you're introducing additional variables.

Something that I haven't pursued but _may_ be helpful to you is Cygwin+X. Again, this introduces additional variables, and greatly complicates any troubleshooting you may have to do.

In a similar vein, use Samba or FTP to get a file from your guest OS to the host. To my knowledge, X in VMWare will not play cut-and-paste with Windows; this isn't surprising.

Posting a log may or not be helpful.

How much is the academic license for VMWare?