Recent versions of the Linux kernal haev switched from using udev devfs, this causes problems for versions of vmware pre the Workstations V5 generation. The solution:

1. rm /etc/vmware/not_configured if it exists.
2. Copy the following code into /etc/init.d/vmware after line 815.

   for a in `seq 0 9`; do
       mknod /dev/vmnet$a c 119 $a > /dev/null 2>&1
       done
       mknod /dev/vmmon c 10 165 > /dev/null 2>&1

3. Now run /etc/init.d/vmware start and the program should work again.