Ask VMWare to generate unique id (UUID)

Last month, the company updated the physical network configuration. The VMWare instance experienced a mysterious problem - VMWare instance could access the outside world, but outside world could not ping it.

I have tested static IP, DHCP, configured this VMWare instance to use valid IP of other machine (while shutting that machine down), extracted the old backup version of this VMWare instance, etc. A colleague told me he encountered this issue before. What to do is, while this VMWare instance executes "ping ..." to outside world, then outside world can ping it but with 50% packet lost. This is still mysterious and not acceptable.

I recalled, when VMWare starts up the vm instance, it would ask whether to generate unique id (universally unique identifier) for the vmware instance. This step gives the virtual machine's Ethernet card a new MAC address, to prevent address conflicts with other people using this virtual machine.

However I have chosen the option to always keep the uuid, how do I ask VMWare to ask me to create the uuid again?

Reference: http://www.vmware.com/support/gsx3/doc/manage_uuid_gsx.html

1. In the folder that contains VMWare files, look for .vmx file. It is a plain text file that contains setting of the vm instance.
2. Copy .vmx to other name, e.g. file2.vmx.
3. Edit file2.vmx to remove the line, which contains “uuid.action”.Start VMWare to load file2.vmx, VMWare will ask you to create uuid again.