It turns out that enabling the VMware Player “replicate physical network state” mode is only for use when running VMware Player on a device that has a WI-Fi connection and means that :
as you move from one wired or wireless network to another, the IP address is automatically renewed inside the virtual machine.
See
file:///C:/Program%20Files/VMware/VMware%20Player/help/wwhelp/wwhimpl/js/html/wwhelp.htm
#href=t_set_up_bridged_networking.html
