After updating to VMWare Fusion 12.2.3, I made the mistake of clicking "reinstall vmware tools" from the Virtual Machines menu. After clicking a prompt's "Install" button, nothing happened. 30 minutes later, still nothing. Restarting Windows didn't fix it. 

VMWare Tools was still running in Windows 11 but the Virtual Machines menu showed "Cancel reinstalling vmware tools..." grayed out.

Online advice I found didn't help.

FIX

• Downloaded VMWare Tools 12.0 into Windows (if you download it on the Mac, you better have VMWare Tools still running to be able to drag copy it from the Mac to Windows).

This message board won't let me post the url to VMWare Tools 12.0's download page, which isn't easy to find (though it should be). So here's a the non-active url you can manually enter in your browser by removing the gaps and replacing "dot" with a period:

customerconnect dot vmware dot com/downloads/details?downloadGroup=VMTOOLS1200&productId=742

• Downloaded and ran CCleaner in Windows 11 and used its Tools/Uninstall feature to remove VMWare Tools (I think CCleaner is more thorough than Windows -- i.e., it doesn't seem to leave any or as many registry keys behind).

• Extracted VMWare Tools download in Windows, opened its vmtools folder, double-clicked its windows.iso file then double-clicked its setup.exe. That reinstalled VMWare Tools fine. 

• Restarted ok. The Virtual Machines menu in Fusion then showed a normal non-grayed out Reinstall VMWare Tools choice (that I'd stay away from!).

• Used CCleaner to remove itself then deleted the vmware tools downloads.

OBSERVATION

Over the years wrestling with VMWare Tools almost always came down to vmware registry keys confusing vmware installation processes. Years ago I'd sometimes manually use the Windows registry's find command to locate and remove every key with "vmware" in its name in order to make vmware tools installer work again. I stumbled on that after failed hours-long vmware support phone calls. CCleaner uninstall feature and registry cleaner makes that easier.

SUGGESTION

VMWare Tools installation and reinstallation process should start by removing all vmware registry keys from Windows. I'm sure the installer has other problems, too. I guess Fusion isn't profitable enough to pay programmers to fix the perpetually flaky tools reinstall feature.