On starting VMWare Workstation Player (for the first time, or after) the desired OS should be installed. In this case, CentOS.

You will have wanted to download a CentOS 7 ISO (International Standards Organization) image file from the CentOS web site.

Start VMWare Workstation Player.

Select "Create a New Virtual Machine".

Select "Installer disc image file (iso)" and "Browse", locate, and select the CentOS 7 image file that you just downloaded.

Select "Next". Select a location for the

Select a location (and name) for the VM image.

Unless you have a good reason, select the defaults at each step.

When you first start your Virtual Machine for CentOS 7, it is not installed, so you will be going through all of the steps as if you were installing CentOS 7 on a real machine.

You will have to wait it times as the install progresses.

Note: To recover the mouse and keyboard for Windows, press Ctrl-Alt. Otherwise, the Virtual Machine is controlling the mouse and keyboard.

After CentOS 7 is installed as the virtual machine, and when you see the "Install Tools" notice, it is a good idea to install these tools for VMWare. It makes it easier to use the Virtual Machine. But wait until after the installation is complete.

At this point, one can continue with the installation notes at CentOS 7 installation as if one were installing CentOS 7 on a separate machine.

---