A separate thought on your license.
I don't know if you have full or proper license for Workstation, which does require it if I remember it correctly - at least that's my case. The Player may have a free or trial version. But, if your existing installation did have a license, you should try to apply a proper one to a new version after successful installation.
I don't know if your situation with license should have anything to do with failing to de-/un-install and/or (re-)install Workstation. I don't remember whether I had to provide my license at installation time or only the first run time.