allrighty,
updated VMWare Player (this is what I use, don't know the other VMWare stuff) to version 3.1.3 build-324285, just got it from their site - updated the tools as well.
Apart from my entire machine and the vm seems faster than before (or is it the moon??:-) the "2" thing still happens, it restarts X - but after login all is fine, thankfully,
apparently it doesn't matter where I press "2" in the initial X session - just fired up a console in the vm and pressed "3" just for fun, no reaction and then "2" and again boom.
The only special thing I have going on is the keyboard changed to danish - haven't even changed the timezone - this keeps it as plain vanilla as possible for building :-)