This may be a stupid question. But are you using grub and have nomodeset? Sometimes DE’s have problem with xorg setting monitor settings, which you then half to override somewhere in the init of the DE
"I have the same issue and have the following workaround:
It is possible to set the resolution from a command line using ‘xrandr’. Running just xrandr allows you to see the current resolution and the other valid resolutions.
From a command line you can run ‘xrandr -s 1024x768’ and the screen in VMware will reset to that size!
You can even set this at KDE startup by doing the following:
click KDE start icon
select System Settings
select Startup and Shutdown
click Add Program…
enter ‘xrandr -s 1024x768’ in the text box
be sure the “run in Terminal” checkbox is checked
follow the rest of the prompts to set it as a startup command.
The next time you log in, it will start at 800x600 but at the end of the login you will see the screen resize!