I've been having weird connectivity issues with Windows 7 and VMWare Workstation 6.5.2. None of the networking "really" worked, even in bridged mode - nslookup worked, ping worked, but anything using TCP did not (http, ftp and so forth).

Quick Fix for Bridge mode at least: An Inbound firewall rule that permits the VMWare worker application to send and receive all traffic.

Open Windows Firewall with Advanced Security. Right-click on Inbound Rules and choose New Rule:

Ensure Create a Program Rule is selected , and click Next:

Enter the path to the VMWare worker process, vmware-vmx.exe. I'm running Windows 7 x64, so for me it was C:\Program Files (x86)\VMWare\VMWare Workstation\x64\vmware-vmx.exe - yours may be different;  then click Next:

Accept the default values for the Action and Profile pages, and click Next:

Enter a name and an optional description for the rule, and click Finish:

Locate the rule, right-click it and choose Properties. Select the Advanced tab and change the Edge Traversal setting to Allow Edge Traversal:

That's it - networking should work a lot better now.

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