clean shutdown of a linux host machine

I have a Linux host running vmware server version 1.0.4-56528 and I have a running VM acting as a web server. I want to make sure the host machine shut downs cleanly, i.e. suspending the running VM instead of stopping it uncleanly (as /etc/init.d/vmware stop seems to do). For that I replaced the call for this script by these two lines in the shutdown local script:

1. /usr/local/bin/vmware-cmd /path/config.vmx suspend

2. /etc/rc.d/init.d/vmware stop

and then I use these lines to start it up again during boot:

1. /etc/rc.d/init.d/vmware start

2. /usr/local/bin/vmware-cmd /path/config.vmx start

However, it sometimes doesn't work, becoming in the stuck state; the console then issues a warning stating that the processor architecture is different, and thus problems might arise.

Any ideas of this behavior?

Cheers,

Rodrigo