I don't think it's a driver issue, because VMware Workstation - like any other Windows application - leverages Windows functions for networking and does not bring separate NIC drivers, but only services which use default APIs.
Did you try to completely uninstall VMware Workstation (using the /clean command line option) before you installed another version? And did you install it using "Run as Administrator" to ensure it's not a permission issue. You may also want to read
http://faq.sanbarrow.com/index.php?solution_id=1113. Although this is for version 7, most of the points still apply.
André