I just installed some normal updates through the auto-updater - I've never had a problem doing this.
After restarting my virtual machine (using vmware player), the desktop no longer shows. When I enter TTY1 it said VMware tools had failed so I uninstalled it. The desktop still doesn't show.
I've tried re-enabling Unity through the compizconfig-setting-manager and that doesn't work either.
I'm worried I'm going to have to make a new virtual machine at this rate.
Thank you
[edit] I just logged in through a Xubuntu session and that seems to work - so at least I can get my files off the machine. So this could be a gnome / unity issue.