I give up, where are the freaking VMware tools?

[EncryptedToast]

Ok, they are not on the CD, they are not put anywhere in the path to the Workstation software and according to the guide at http://www.vmware.com/support/ws4/doc/new_guest_tools_ws.html :

Note: You do not use an actual CD-ROM to install VMware Tools, nor do you need to download the CD-ROM image or burn a physical CD-ROM of this image file. The VMware Workstation software contains an ISO image that looks like a CD-ROM to your guest operating system. This image contains all the files needed to install VMware Tools in your guest operating system.[/i]

Can anyone tell me \*where* this ISO is supposed to be?

[RDPetruska]

The iso images are located in your Workstation folder. There should be no reason for you to manually locate them anyway - the menu VM-->Install VMware Tools should automatically mount the appropriate ISO image for the guestOS you have specified.

[KevinG]

What is your host & guest OS?

[EncryptedToast]

Ah, I found them. The host is XP, guest is various Linux VMs.

Turns out that with Linux, choosing "Install VM ware tools" is not enough; there are other hoops to be jumped that involve mounting the ISO as a virtual CD.