yup, this is what I told you.
this happens because your uname -a shows an smp after the kernel name (2.6.17-1.2174_FC5smp) and the the kernel files dont. this is the reason I told you to update your kernel. so after you update you will get a non-smp kernel. then you would need to install the kernel header files for this kernel.

so I try both a yum update kernel and after that a yum install kernel and seems like neither does anything...

[root@Fed-5 include]# yum update kernel
Loading "installonlyn" plugin
Setting up Update Process
Setting up repositories
core [1/3]
core 100% |=========================| 1.1 kB 00:00
updates [2/3]
updates 100% |=========================| 1.2 kB 00:00
extras [3/3]
extras 100% |=========================| 1.1 kB 00:00
Reading repository metadata in from local files
primary.xml.gz 100% |=========================| 372 kB 00:02
updates : ################################################## 1004/1004
Added 1 new packages, deleted 2 old in 1.67 seconds
Could not find update match for kernel
No Packages marked for Update/Obsoletion
[root@Fed-5 include]# yum install kernel
Loading "installonlyn" plugin
Setting up Install Process
Setting up repositories
core [1/3]
updates [2/3]
extras [3/3]
Reading repository metadata in from local files
Parsing package install arguments
Nothing to do
[root@Fed-5 include]#

boooohoooo

good night and thanks for all the help...

I just solved this issue for one of my CentOS VM's.

When everyone was talking about "yum install kernel-devel", some users are using the SMP kernel so this won't work.

If you are using the SMP kernel you need to do: "yum install kernel-smp-devel" and that will allow vmware-config to finish the drivers / installation.

You need to have installed the GCC compiler / libraries as well.

Velicos:
You are officially the most helpful person of the day.
I've been searching and searching for this solution and I kept coming up empty. I had no idea that there was a kernel-smp-devel.

You should get an award.

I've leeched off hundreds of existing forum topics and found answers to my problems, so it feels good to contribute from time to time.

Glad it helped.

Ok so I did the yum command, I then restart fedora, run the setup script for vm tools, select all the defaults and get to a message asking what the directory is that contains the c header files that match my running kernal /usr/src/linux/include. I don't know that

Extended,

If you have the kernel-devel and / or kernel-smp-devel (depending on the type of kernel you're booting with) the VMWare config perl script should pick up on it automatically.

Make sure you did both:

"yum install kernel-devel kernel-smp-devel"

Just to make sure.... if it's still not finding it then I haven't the slightest idea....

hmm I am so happy I could forward you an email I received from congressman foley (ok not that happy)but it seems to work now...

Thanks is good enough - but Foley stays out of my pants.