Hi and thanks for the reply:
Answers below:
OSX 10.7.5
Sorry, about my nomenclature. By XP emulator, I mean, I run XP Professional as my virtual machine. The RAM was more for the mac side. I will change the mouse settings back to default.
At this time I'm only using 1 core. The host is not running much - at any time, I'll have Mail, Daylite, Safari (or Firefox), Office for Mac.
Regarding what is running on the host or how many cores, I want to reiterate that this problem manifests itself even if the virtual machine is not running (but VMware app is running). Easiest way for me to invoke the problem is to start VMware and then click on the <Virtual Machine> drop-down, then <Settings>. After this, I simply click the "General" icon and it causes the hang. If I look at my Activity monitor, it shows that the VMware is not responding and that the process is having a "hang". I'm attaching an image of the System monitor and the "inspect" process for this if that helps.
I'm also attaching an image of my HD specs - I have what appears to be tons of available space.
As far as "smart status" and/or Smart Utility, I'm not familiar with that, but would love to know how it could help me.
Best regards,
Michael