Hi Jabran,

Here are descriptions of the types of networking available for use with a virtual machines. I have left out the custom networking, since knowing the basics is the first step.

Bridged networking:

Physical network adapter in host is connected to virtual switch vmnet0 and VM is connected to virtual switch vmnet0

Both should be on the same subnet as the host.

You will not see a virtual network adapter installed on the host with the name vmnet0.

http://www.vmware.com/support/ws5/doc/ws_net_configurations_bridged.html

Host Only networking.

The virtual network adapter(vmnet1) installed in the host is connected to the virtual switch vmnet1 (Same name as the virtual adapter) The virtual machine will connect to the virtual switch vmnet1. They will be on a private subnet.

By default there is DHCP service provide by the vmnet1 virtual switch. This configuration does not use the physical network adapter in the host.

http://www.vmware.com/support/ws5/doc/ws_net_configurations_hostonly.html

NAT networking:

The virtual network adapter(vmnet8) installed in the host is connected to the virtual switch vmnet8 (Same name as the virtual adapter) The virtual machine will connect to the virtual switch vmnet8. They will be on a private subnet.

By default there is DHCP service & NAT service provide by the vmnet8 virtual switch. The VMware NAT device passes network data between one or more virtual machines and the external network. It identifies incoming data packets intended for each virtual machine and sends them to the correct destination. If you select NAT, the virtual machine can use many standard TCP/IP protocols to connect to other machines on the external network. For example, you can use HTTP to browse Web sites, FTP to transfer files and Telnet to log on to other computers. In the default configuration, computers on the external network cannot initiate connections to the virtual machine. That means, for example, that the default configuration does not let you use the virtual machine as a Web server to send Web pages to computers on the external network.

http://www.vmware.com/support/ws5/doc/ws_net_configurations_nat.html

Do you have multiple network adapters in your host?

If so, automatic bridging may have select the first one it found and it may be not the one you want.

Run vmnetcfg.exe on your system and click on the "Automatic Bridging" tab

Unckeck "Automatically choose an available physical network adapter to bridge to VMnet0"

Click on the "Host Virtual Network Mapping" tab and from the VMnet0 dropdown menu. Select the physical network adapter that you want to bridge to VMnet0.

Also check the properties of the physical network adapter.

Make sure that the VMware Bridge protocol is installed and has a check mark next to it.