Win 8.1 won't launch in Vmware Fusion

Good afternoon!

Mid-2011 MBP, 2.4 gHz Core i5, 16 GB RAM, 500GB SSD, OS X 10.11.6

Used VMWare Fusion 2.0 in the distant past to run WinXP for work purposes, thought it would be equally easy this time....

Just installed Windows 8.1 via Boot Camp assistant to run one proprietary work program; also downloaded Fusion 8.1.1.

Windows launches fine from boot if I simply use the option key. However, if I try to launch the same partition through Fusion, I get the "Your PC did not start correctly, Automatic Repair" error. Further, if I go to "Advanced Options" in Windows, and choose "refresh your PC," I'm told "there aren't any administrator accounts on this PC"!

Yes, I could just boot into Windows, but toggling from OS X to a VM is a whole lot easier.