Looks like "Preserve" is the default choice...
2013-06-07T13:44:36.865-05:00| vmx| I120: MsgIsAnswered: Using builtin default 'Preserve' as the answer for 'msg.checkpoint.resume.error'
The question now becomes how to set it to "Discard". In our situation, "Preserve" actually causes the guest OS to loop through a kind of suspended reset, never allowing it to boot. I had to change msg.autoAnswer back to "FALSE" just so I could choose "Discard" and then finally boot up WinXP.
Is it just as simple as adding msg.checkpoint.resume.error = "DISCARD" in the vmx file?
--PJ