I searched VMWare troubleshooting docs and tried ALL of the steps, and searched here. Surprised I didn't find a solution so here goes:
VMWare Workstation Pro v15.5. Running a single VM just fine (Windows Server 2016 Standard).
I recently added a second VM, a Windows Server 2003 Standard as a proof of concept only, it will never (hopefully) need to run on this host. This new VM was running on VMWare Player v6.x, I used the latest (v6.2.0) VMware vCenter Converter Standalone to "upgrade" it to the latest VMware it would convert to (hardware version 11 I recall). The new VM started up and a cursory check was fine. Since it was a test of a old but still running VM on another host, I changed networking to "Host only". I've since "removed" the new VM from VMware Workstation.
Now the original VM that was running flawlessly shows "no network access". I've tried everything I can think of! All appears fine with networking - the adapter is enabled and shows "connected", it has it's static ip address and all other pertinent network settings. The host's networking is fine, fully in production. The symptoms are simply "no network access", the tray icon has a yellow "!", the "network" is shown as an "Unidentified Network", "Public", Access Type: no network access" on "Ethernet0" adapter. Looking at the properties, everything appears correct. There is activity shown there, network traffic being sent a bit, and received a lot less but at least some. I can ping the loopback address but nothing else.
The network setting for the VM is Bridged (not checked "Replicate physical network state") as it always has been. "Connected" and "Connect at power on" are checked.
I've reverted the VM back to quite a few known good previous snapshots, including all the way back to near the beginning of the build - no luck. Uninstalled, reinstalled VMware Workstation. Allowed the upgrade from v15.5 to v15.5.5. Performed every trick in the book I know of resetting networking with netsh and even the "reset network" in the O/S GUI. No glaring items of interest are in the System or Application logs of either the host or the VM having the problem.
I've seen so tried "adding" a network adapter "Intel Pro 1000/MT" nic (replacing the original "Intel 82574L Gigabit network connection), that flunked with the new adapter reporting the hardware cannot start. Update driver for the original nic yields no available newer drivers. I've tried disabling the Windows firewall, uninstalling the Avast anti-malware software (ONLY the remote control module was installed anyway), and that's been solid since the beginning and on many other systems under my care. I've tried regenerating the MAC address for the VM. I'm still stuck!