Even though you're running Windows in a Virtual Machine nonetheless generally speaking these are not VMware issues per se. In other words these issues are more Windows related and as such typically needs to be diagnosed/troubleshot just as if running on a Physical Machine so you'll need to act accordingly.
FWIW I would not have changed both the virtual hardware version and the hardware settings of the Virtual Machine at the sane time. First I'd take a Snapshot and upgrade the virtual hardware version, make sure everything is okay, take another Snapshot and then change the hardware setting making sure everything is okay and if all is well then delete the Snapshots. This way if there is an issue it's isolated to a particular change and easier to diagnose/troubleshoot while having a way to easily get back to a known good working build! 