The manual says "After the MAC address has been generated, it does not change unless the virtual machine is moved to a different location, for example, to a different path on the same server. "

Try this, to see if you can make it change.

Here's some documentation I wrote on this...

http://vmware-land.com/Vmware_Tips.html#Net3

How can I set a static MAC address for my VM?
This is useful for software that is licensed by the MAC address of the server it is running on or if you migrate a physical server to virtual and want to keep the same MAC address. A VM’s MAC address will change if the location of the VM changes, ie. different path on the same host. During a hot migration (Vmotion) the location of the VM does not change, this is also true of a VM that changes hosts due to HA/DRS migration. During a cold migration the location of the VM does change so the MAC address of the VM will change.

MAC addresses are hex values and consist of six groups of hex numbers. The first 3 octets of the MAC address is a unique code assigned to each NIC vendor, this is also called the Organizationally Unique Identifier (OUI), VMware’s OUI is “00:50:56”. The last 3 octets are assigned to all of the NIC’s for that vendor. Each MAC address must be unique to avoid conflicts with other network devices. You do not have to use the VMware assigned range (00:50:56) for your NIC’s. If you are coming from a physical server you can use the previous NIC’s range instead, (ie. HP/Compaq NIC’s use 00:08:02) as the first 3 octets. Just make sure the physical NIC and virtual NIC with the same MAC address are not active on the same physical network at the same time. There are several methods for setting a static MAC address on a VM which are listed below. If you use the first method you must stay inside VMware’s allowed MAC addresses (00:50:56:00:00:00 – 00:50:56:3F:FF:FF) or the VM will not start

Editing the VMX file of the VM:
• Edit the VMX file of the VM
• Change the following line from ethernetN.addressType="vpx" to ethernetN.addressType="static" (N is the number of your ethernet adapter, usually 0)
• Next change the line “ethernetN.GeneratedAddress” to “ethernetN.address” and then change the current MAC address to “00:50:56:XX:YY:ZZ” (again N is the number of your ethernet adapter and XX is a valid hex number between 00 and 3F, and YY and ZZ are valid hex numbers between 00 and FF. The value for XX must not be greater than 3F in order to avoid conflict with MAC addresses that are generated by the VMware Workstation and VMware GSX Server products.)
• Power your VM back on. Login to the OS, go to the CMD prompt and type “ipconfig /all”, your manually assigned MAC address should be listed for the NIC that you changed

Setting the NIC properties in Windows:
• Edit the Local Area Connection propeties for the NIC you want to change
• Click the Configure button next to the NIC name
• On the Advanced tab select NetworkAddress
• In the Value field enter a new value for the MAC address, enter only numbers or letters, no spaces, dashes or colons. This MAC address can be any valid hex numbers between 00 and FF for any of the octets
• Click OK and that’s it, the new MAC address takes effect immediately and will override any MAC address set by Vmware

Fyi…if you find this post helpful, please award points using the Helpful/Correct buttons.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Thanks, Eric
Visit my website: http://vmware-land.com
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-