Are you talking about when using VMware Workstation? I have always seen the network connections say "Local Area Connection 1, 2, 3, etc" If there is only one adapter but it says Local Area Connection 2 and it doesnt let you change to "Local Area Connection" it is because the original physical network adapter is still in your machine as a non_present_device.
If that is the issue, do the following:
go to the command prompt and type the following:
set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1
start devmgmt.msc
Then you need to go to your device manager, click on view > Show Hidden Devices.
Go to the network adapters tab and delete any half-visible adapters.
I have never seen a network where "local area connection" is used instead of "VMnet" or vice versa. The only explanation I can give you is POSSIBLY if the documentation is going back and forth between the host machine's network connections and the VM's network connections within Workstation. Within the VM it would not show anything about VMNet8 or VMNet0. Only from the host computer will you see that.
Does that make sense? You didn't give enough information to really know where to take this. HTH