unfortunately, the vmware player (VMware-Player-2.5.5-328052.x86_64.bash) no longer seems to work under cinnamon mint olivia. (for the record, I purchased a couple of vmware pay products over the years, too.)
I do have the build essentials installed and the kernel,
sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-$(uname -r)
which is now 3.8.0-19-generic (from 'uname -r', i.e., the current standard version), and I did try the workaround,
ln -s /usr/src/linux-headers-$(uname -r)/include/generated/uapi/linux/version.h /usr/src/linux-headers-$(uname -r)/include/linux/version.h
but /usr/bin/vmplayer cannot find the header files to reinstall itself. I tried reinstalling the bash script (oops, I mean bundle), but this does not help either.
by the way, there was another long-standing bug in the linux (ubuntu) version: the authorization module was not working. so, it would prompt repeatedly for the root password, but never accept it. to fix this, one had to first become su, then run it once from the command line so it could recompile the modules, and then it worked fine.
so, now I am totally stuck. any advice?
sincerely,
/iaw