This panel configures the type of networking that the virtual machine will use. Four choices are available.
No Networking.
Bridged Networking. This connects the virtual machine directly to an external network via an Ethernet adapter card in your computer, and is called bridged mode networking.
Host-only Networking. This connects the guest operating system to the host computer internally over a virtual network, and is called host-only networking. Select this option if you do not want to connect to a remote network, if you want to use the host as a gateway to a remote network, or if you must do so because the remote network is not Ethernet.
Bridged and Host-only Networking. This connects the guest operating system diretly to a local Ethernet via an Ethernet network adapter card in you computer and allows your guest operating system to access your host filesystem via an internal virtual network.
With bridged networking, you need to configure operating system support for the virtual network adapter and then either assign a fixed network address or enable use of dynamic address assignment with DHCP or BOOTP. When multiple virtual machines that use bridged networking run at the same time, all of them (including the host) must have different network addresses. Consult your network administrator to obtain a network address.
A virtual machine that uses host-only networking may get its network address dynamically from the virtual machine DHCP server running on the host. This is the easier option. It may also be assigned a static network address for the private network number used by the virtual network. In either case it is not necessary to contact your network administrator.A virtual machine that uses host-only networking is not able to access remote networks unless a proxy server is configured on the host.
Technical notes on the VMware Web site provide additional information about networking a virtual machine.