How to get VMWare Workstation 6.5 Guest VM NAT working with a Windows 7 Build 7000 host

On a good note, build 7000 as a host has working VM guest bridged networking, but the VMWare NAT still seems to be not quite working.

There is a new an improved workaround provided by the comments in my original post about networking problems with older builds of Windows 7 and VMWare here.

Overall, this assumes you are going to bypass VMWare's NAT functionality and use the built-in ICS (Internet Connection Sharing) inside Windows 7. As a side effect, you will have to 'reprogram' VMNet1 to use the 192.168.0.x subnet.

1. Run the Virtual Network Editor as Administrator (Use RunAS or right click and Run as Administrator on vmnetcfg.exe)
2. Goto Host Virtual Adapters and remove all VMNet instances (VMNet1 and VMNet8 typically).
3. Click Apply.
4. Add New and Assign it the new adapter to VMnet1.
5. Click Apply.
6. Select the Host Virtual Networking tab.
7. Click the > next to VMnet1 and change the address and subnet to the ICS network (192.168.0.0 / 255.255.255.0)
8. Click Apply.
9. Go to the NAT tab and select VMNet1.
10. Click Edit and change the Gateway to the ICS gateway IP (192.168.0.1)
11. Click Apply and restart the NAT service. (Counter-intuitive, I know.)
12. Go to the DHCP tab.
13. Add VMNet1 and remove all others.
14. Click Apply.
15. Select Properties of VMNet1 in DHCP Tab.
16. Enter a Start and End Address for DHCP Scope (192.168.0.50 to 192.168.0.75 as an example)
17. Adjust client lease to a few days to avoid potential DHCP client renewal timeouts.
18. Click OK / Click Apply.
19. Select Host Only Networking for every VM that needs NAT out to your host network/internet.
20. Enable ICS (Internet Connection Sharing) on the W7 Host network card that provides connectivity. Select VMNet1 as the network card that needs access.

Everything should "just work" with the IPs coming from the mshome.net DHCP server of ICS.

When I get more time, I will work on turning this into a screencast because it isn't "obvious" unless you see it in person. With that said, I have fully functional VMWare bridged and NAT'd guest VM networks.