VMWare + Vodafone USB Modem = Slow VM + Hung Explorer

I recently changed my old Vodafone PCMCIA card for a small USB modem which, honestly, generates less blue screens and works with a lighter version for Vodafone Mobile Connect software. Until then, only happiness.

Then came the day I had to generate a new VMWare-based VM in a rush and right after I clicked "power on" my Windows Explore became unresponsive while the VM was performing much slower than usual.

After interrogating the usual suspects such as AV, Windows Defender, Defrag (yeah, running Vista)... I notice that I added an USB controller to my VM whose default behavior is to connect available USB device at power one. While the USB modem integrates the modem functionality it also incluses an CR-Rom storage that hosts the firmware and software and is visible to Windows as a standard USB storage. Sadly enough the VM connected that device et boot and kept exclusive usage of it.