This is weird. I have set up lots of VMs, with guests of winXP, win7-64, win10. Usually the VM's drive c: appears as a network drive to the Host, but I have one which stubbornly resists.
It is win7-64, and a win7-64 Host. I am using a VM here for isolation, to test a version of a project without risk of contamination.
I have set up drive c: as shared, both root and a specific directory.
The VM can see the Host's drives ok, and has internet access.
I find that the config options e.g. shared folders makes no difference. Neither does anything here
Then the usual stuff sharing c:
and then more usual stuff here
What could be left? 
I have the free Player 5.1.0 build-13591040.
Host OS is Windows 7 Professional, 64-bit 6.1.7601, Service Pack 1.
I updated the player to v17 (which required Host restart) but it still shows v15 in the VM. I later discovered the update failed because it needs win8+.
Originally this VM could not copy/paste either (although this varied) and I fixed it with
isolation.tools.hgfs.disable = "FALSE"
isolation.tools.copy.disable = "FALSE"
isolation.tools.dnd.disable = "FALSE"
isolation.tools.paste.disable = "FALSE"
in the vmx file. Maybe I should post the vmx file but it is quite big.