VMware Workstation 7 on Win7-64 (Home Premium).

I have confirmed this on any guest running on this machine (from winxp to debian).

I am using a bridged network connection for my guests (Automatic on VMnet0). All of the network configuration is done with DHCP (including on the host).

Problem

What I can not do:

• Ping my host machine from inside any VM. (either shows me "Destination Host Unreachable" or will just timeout)

What I CAN do right after power up, with no problems at all.

• I can connect to the internet from inside the VM
• I can ping my router from inside the VM
• I can ping other machines on my network from inside the VM
• Other machines can ping the VM
• Other machines can ping the host
• My host machine can ping the VM (this one is important. read further)

Details

So I have my router assigned as 192.168.2.1/255.255.255.0, and the router provides the DHCP service (and it seems to be doing so successfully).

There are no IP conflicts on the network that I am aware of. All Gateways and Subnet masks are appropriate and matching.

My entire workshop is on one single subnet, with one single DHCP server and gateway.

There is one method in which I can ping successfully, but it requires an active connection initiated from the host (I start pinging from host to VM). During the period of the active connection, I can successfully ping from VM to host, using explicit IP address. As soon as the host connection is closed, the VM ping starts hanging with the same old messages.

My Thoughts

This really feels like a firewall problem, but I have turned off all firewalls on host and VM, powered down the network, powered back up, and the problem still persists. And if it was firewall, why would only the IP address associated with bridged VM networks be blocked.

I feel as though my host operating system (Win7) is somehow configured incorrectly, or, VMware Workstation is configured incorrectly from the host side. Although I have done my best to put everything in default, I feel like I am missing something silly.