Suse on VMWare Player in Windows XP can't access network

Question

like the title of my question says, i'm trying to run a Suse 10 using VMWare player on Windows XP in bridged mode. Unfortunatly, when doing a /etc/init.d.network restart, it seems like my virtual machine can't get an IP address from DHCP :

Shutting down network interfaces:
     eth0    device: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] 79c970 [PCNet32 LANCE] (rev 10)
     eth0    configuration: eth-id-00:0c:29:35:99:5b              done
shutting down service network . . . . .  . . . . . . . . . . . . .done
Hint: you may set mandatory devices in /etc/sysconfig/network/config
Setting up network interfaces
     lo
     lo      IP address : 17.0.0.1/8
Checking for network time protocol daemon (NTPD)
     eth0    device: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] 79c970 [PCNet32 LANCE] (rev 10)
     eth0    configuration: eth-id-00:0c:29:35:99:5b
     eth0    (DHCP) . . . . no IP address yet... backgrounding. . waiting
Setting up service network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .done

So, is there something to specifically configure in Windows XP/VMWare Player to allow my VM to access my network ?

Answer 1

in fact, the issue was related to the automatic configuration of VMWare player as a default. let me explain it clearly :

If I install VMWare player on my computer, it will automatcially choose one existing network interface as external one. Unfortunatly, in my case, I already had three of them :

• a physical network card
• a VPN network extender
• and VirtualBox bridge extender.

Obviously, VMWare player choose the bad one. Theorically, VMWare provides with its install a tool called vmnetcfg.exe which only role is to allow one to selected bridge network interface. Oddly, this tool is in fact bundled in the VMWare player install, but is not installed. The web contains various entries explaining how to take one VMWare install and extract it, but let me sum it up here :

1. Download VMWare player install (let's call it VMWare_player_install.exe).
2. Execute in cmd.exe (obviously in the install download directory) VMWare_player_install.exe /e temporary_folder
3. Go in temporary_folder. There is a file called network.cab.
4. Open that file. There should be vmnetcfg.exe in.
5. Copy it into VMWare existing install directory.

Then, you (and I) will be able to change network interface used for bridging network.

And now, my Suse can access the network in bridged mode.