Hi Woodyz,
As promised: the results of my efforts. Your suggestion saved the day :-) After adding the link the problem disappeared. There was a minor issue: compilation of the modules still failed with a message `Icon name must be set'. Realizing that I was still using an older version of the player, I decided not to look into that, but upgrade to the latest version. The installation of the latest VMware Player went flawlessly.
So, once again: thanks for your hint. I'll remember it the next time the kernel is upgraded.
Cheers,
Frank.