Thanks Wil,
I have read this as well and I agree it (TM Backups with VMware) is partially broken.
Notwithstanding this, I still think energy should be expended so a fix can be found.
In the event where a split has not been modified for longer than the maximum age of the TM backup and the backup store dumps the file as part of it max backup size routines would indicate the issue is with TM and as such Apple should do something. This would be a major bug in TM and as such many many problems would have surfaced outside fo the VMware TM combination. I suspect this is not the case as I have a lot of files that have not been modified for years and my latest backup has a copy. Again I surmise this is a file lock issue where the snapshot (used by TM) cannot be taken for some files within the VM container of Suspended VM's. It is time to look at the root cause and fix it. Knowing something is broken and not doing anything to fix it is very defeating.
I should add that TM just works and I have had great success restoring fully shutdown VM's. While this testing is not exhaustive I think it is enough for VMware to investigate further. I have a case open with them and hope this can be worked on soon.
I will have a look at your software shortly. Thank you for the suggestion. I need another solution for now even if VMware can fix this in time.
Kind regards