Hello,
I just downloaded the VMware Player 5.0.2 for Windows x64 and installed it on Windows 7.
During the startup and after creating and provisioning a virtual machine the automatic software update download mechanism appears to hang. Clicking "Details" indicates it cannot connect to the update server "https://softwareupdate.vmware.com/cds " which is a non-RFC complaint URL.
Using a browser to go to https://softwareupdate.vmware.com/cds reveals a directory listing, however the links available lead to dead-ends.
However if you use the correct RFC compliant URL https://softwareupdate.vmware.com/cds/ (with a "terminating" slash delimeter) the same directory listing appears, however the links work in that they take you to deeper or lead to referential locations where the content can be downloaded.
There is at least one thread on this bulletin board that indicates various ways of manually extracting and making available the .iso contained inside compressed tarballs and/or msi packages with the tools for a windows OS so that the VMware Tools can be manually installed using the virtual machine mounted version of the .iso file as a local disk.
However this is unsatisfactory as VMware Player is intended to automatically handle this for the end user.
The problem appears to be in libcds.dll and can be corrected with a visual Hex Editor in Windows.
Example:
Download a visual Hex Editor such as xvi32 (Google: http://www.chmaas.handshake.de/delphi/freeware/xvi32/xvi32.htm#download ) extract and run.
Then use windows file explorer to navigate to the libcds.dll file ( "C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Player\libcds.dll" ) make a backup copy in case this fails. Then drag and drop the original on the open and running xvi32 application window.
Xvi32 has a text seach feature "Search" (Then click on "Find - Text string") type [ softwareupdate ] click on [OK]
To the right in the white grid will be the ASCII representation of the URL https://softwareupdate.vmware.com/cds ### where the # represent several null values of '00' hex.
Simply click in the box in the white ASCII grid area after the last letter in 'http://softwareupdate.vmware.com/cds' and type ' / ' ( back slash - next to your lower shift key, under ? )
Then save the file.
Restart VMware Player
[Player] -> File -> Player Preferences -> Software Updates -> [Download All Components Now]
All of the VMware Tools for various Guest operating systems will begin to download with colorful icons to the left, a status of time left to complete to the right and will complete their downloads.
The downloaded packages will then be automatically extracted and applied to this instance of VMware Player.
The *.iso files will wind up in the proper directory ( "C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Player" ) and the VMware Player Console option
[Player] -> Manage -> VMware Tools Installation
Will now automatically install the VMware Tools for the Guest operating system.
If problems arise, you can stop and shutdown Vmware Player, and restore the libcds.dll file that was copied for safe keeping before the edit.
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1035392 - Knowledge Base - Installing VMware Tools in VMware Player
http://communities.vmware.com/message/2143946 - VMware Player 5 - Tools - "Cannot find component on update server..."
http://communities.vmware.com/message/2071061 - URL nonconformity
http://communities.vmware.com/message/1833330 - libcds.dll
