Hello --
I went through the motions of starting the server, and this time I encountered an error message indicating VMWare could not access the lock file. My next step was to go the Virtual Machines/<server> directory, and removing the correct .lck file, which in this case had today's date. I then tried starting the virtual machine again, and this time it came up.
I am doing further testing on it, but it appears to be operating properly. This was accomplished without having to interact with any message box. Why would this have worked this time? Also, will I have to go through the motions of removing the lock file every time the virtual machine is brought down, or should this be a one-time occurrence?