I found this on the internet, hope it helps:
VMware KB: Keyboard or mouse do not work in a hosted virtual machine
And the reason why your Virtual Machine is taking forever to get to the boot screen in because if you have under 2108 MB of RAM(this is for me, check on yours) It uses VRAM, Which is Virtual RAM and it uses space off your hard drive to use as ram. So if you have an SSD(Solid State Drive) it shouldn't be that bad it if you have a HDD(Hard Disk Drive) the speed of your virtual machine will be terrible. I have two cores in my VM even though I only have two cores in my computer. Be aware though if you give the VM too much of your computer speed(like all of it) You will not be able to use your computer very well, So I suggest only do this RAM trick if you aren't going to be using your VM and your PC together, Thankyou