While installing VMware Player from the Gentoo Linux repositories, I was advised also to download directly from VMware, specifically, "VMware-VIX-1.11.4-744019.i386.bundle". I was not able to find this specific version. 
However, I did find the one before it and the one after it. someone swore to me that this unique version, and only this one, had to be used for my purpose. Now risking life and limb here, I have to ask, was such a version ever made, and could it be made available somehow? Thanks.