How to increase delay time for BIOS for VMWare Guest OS

To increase the BIOS delay time of your guest OS, open the folder containing your VMWare image (on Windows it should be on C:\Data\Virtual Machines\<YOUR_IMAGE_NAME).

Open with Notepad++ the file with extension .vmx  and modify or edit the setting

bios.bootDelay = "5000"

The delay is in milliseconds and the maximum value you can set is 10000 (10 seconds).


Alternatively if you put the line:
 
bios.forceSetupOnce = "FALSE"

You will get always the BIOS settings. So no crazy fast F2 typing required! This is useful for one-time changes (typically to change the boot sequence).


Another interesting link is this one, that explains how to increase the disk space on the guest os using gparted.


Source:
https://kb.vmware.com/