I’ve installed VMware tools hundreds of times and never encountered this one before… the VMware tools installation fails on XP with “Setup failed to install the XXXX driver automatically.” The VMXNet, Mouse, and Video drivers all fail.

It’s because HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce had been deleted. Manually create the key and the problem is fixed.

VMware KB Article 1006382