Since you are using VMWare, you can change the adapter settings for your virtual machine. I am using VMWare fusion on the Mac, but it should be the same thing for the windows version:
You have 3 options for your network adapter settings :
- Bridged
- NAT
- Host-only
You can use both "Bridged" and "NAT" for internet access, the difference between both being mainly whether or not other machines on your network can interact with that virtual machine.
More info on the differences between "Bridged" and "NAT" can be found here.
With a clean installation of a virtual machine, having access to the internet should be as simple as changing your network adapter settings in your VMWare client. If this doesn't work, you will probably have to setup some configurations in your virtual machine.