How do I manage virtual network settings in VMWare Player?

Question

In former times, there was a vmnetcfg.exe present with the VMWare Player distribution.

Using vmnetcfg.exe, one was able to configure the VMWare network settings like setting up a port forwarding for NAT and so on.

Unfortunately, vmnetcfg.exe is no longer present in newer installations of VMWare player.

How do I manage the network settings with a newer player installation?

There are at least two possibilities to get hands on the VMWare Network Settings again.

• extract vmnetcfg.exe from a VMWare Workstation setup file
• execute vmnetcfg using vmnetui.dll

How to extract vmnetcfg.exe from a VMWare Workstation setup file?

If you still have the setup file used for installing the player, you could extract the vmnetcfg.exe from this setup file:

• download a VMWare Workstation setup matching your VMWare Player version from http://www.vmware.com/go/downloadworkstation
• open a command prompt where your setup file is (e.g. C:/temp/download)
• unpack the setup file using
  VMware-workstation-full-VERSION.exe /e target_dir
  This will create target_dir and unpack the contents of the installer there
• locate core.cab in the fresh target_dir folder
• open core.cab with an archiver capable of reading .cab files
• copy vmnetcfg.exe from the archive to the install directory of your VMWare Player
• execute vmnetcfg.exe

However, this method has some drawbacks:

• need to download the workstation installer first
• need to download a workstation setup matching your player version
• manual interaction

To have an easier way, read on.

How to execute vmnetcfg using vmnetui.dll?

While the player installation doesn't contain vmnetcfg.exe anymore, there's a file called vmnetui.dll present in the installation folder of your VMWare Player. To bring up the UI of the network config, do this:

• open a command promt as administrator
• navigate to your install folder of VMWare Player
• execute rundll32 vmnetui.dll,VMNetUI_ShowStandalone

This will bring up the VMWare network settings dialog.

Comments

[David Balažic]

Some net options can be set by editing the config files, like: C:\ProgramData\VMware\vmnetnat.conf see: pubs.vmware.com/workstation-9/…

[dfuse]

the last option doesn't seem to work anymore on VMWare Player 12

[David Balažic]

Neither does it work on v7.

[hanshenrik]

in my "vmware player 12.1.1", that dll doesn't even exist. and there's no such command line parameter in the installer. there is an "x" switch which is supposed to extract everything to %temp% , but it doesn't work. :(

[vextorspace]

Any idea how to get network settings if the host system is linux?

[eckes]

@vextorspace: never used VMWare on Linux, sorry.

[vextorspace]

Just found this: pubs.vmware.com/workstation-9/…

[David Balažic]

Extracting a few more files (a DLL is needed, don't remember which) will make it work even with version 7.x. Also if you keep those files around (in a separate folder), they work even with newer versions, like 12.x. They just edit vmnetnat.conf (see comment on the question) and restart the VM NAT service.