Yes. I followed all the steps.
After a reboot I can see the splash screen (so maybe I missed a reboot somewhere). The problem is that I cannot install (or repair or uninstall) 5.02 or 3.xxx. I've downloaded the install for each version and it runs but always fails at one of two places:
1. it refers to a missing vmwareplayer.msi in 'c:windows\installer'. Depending on what I'm running, it's actually in C:\vmp314 or C:\vmps316 or C:\vmp502 or hte temp folder during the repair/uninstall. I even copied the contents of the temp folder to c:\windows\installer but it didn't help.
2. It cannot write the Registry keys (I suppose this is because the Registry cleanup I did removed them because they weren't needed. I can't understand why an uninstall needs them (delete? Not there? don't bother and go to next delete!) or why a repair won't write them.
I have considered just brute force deleting every single trace of vmware player and trying again. Any thoughts on that?