In VMware, select your guest, and click “Install/Upgrade VMware Tools”

Then go back in your VM, and issue all the following commands from terminal.

mkdir -p /media/cdrom
mount /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom

Sometimes, you have to run the “mount” twice…. Cdrom might not have been ready the first time

cd /media/cdrom
cp VM*.tar.gz /tmp

Install the headers, required to build:

apt-get install -y linux-headers-$(uname -r|sed 's,[^-]*-[^-]*-,,')

Proceed with the rest of the install process

cd /tmp
umount /media/cdrom
tar xzvf VM*.tar.gz
vmware-tools-distrib
./vmware-install.pl -d

The -d to the previous command automatically puts all the defaults answers. Remove it if you want to choose them manually.

Tested on:
Ubuntu 12.04, 12.10, Debian 7

Hypervisor:
ESXi 5.1
Workstation 9, 10.

If you have a different procedure, or tested this one on other hypervisor or OS, drop a comment so I can add it.