Installing Centos 6.3 under vmware workstation 7

If you plan to install VMware Tools under Centos 6.3, ensure that you use the latest iso (vmware tools 9.0.0 for linux) . This can be extracted from the free version of vmware player/workstation 9.

The issue with VMware workstation 7 is that it doesn't support kernels later than 2.6.18, and has problems re-building under centos 6.3 (gets confused about kernel versions).

Much simpler this way!

Step 1: do not use the default VM > Install vmtools
Instead mount the iso as a cd/dvd drive

Step 2: Unpack the tar file from the iso disk into /tmp

Step 3: Run vmware-tools-distrib/vmware-install.pl

Step 4: Just accept the defaults. Let the new initrd be built. Don't say yes to automatic modules

Step 5:  reboot

Step 6: If you want seamless advanced X;
start /usr/bin/vmware-user
restart your desktop session & X (simplest to logout and logon)

If you want to use vmxnet (more efficient) restart network:
/etc/init.d/network stop
rmmod pcnet32
rmmod vmxnet
modprobe vmxnet
/etc/init.d/network start