Sorry for the delay. Version 12.5.9 is also incompatible with kernel 4.13, so upgrading would not help. It is also unclear to me if the patches out there for kernal 4.13 applies only to that specific version, or all newer kernels moving forward (re-patching with each new kernel is "less than ideal" for my uses). I am also a Linux beginner, so involved command line implementations are a little above my head (can the patches be applied to existing installations, or do they need to be applied to the installation archive first, meaning that I would need to uninstall the version I am currently using, and re-install with the patched version?)
I am hoping that there is something obvious that I am missing, because VMWare is still on the hook for support for the 12.5 flavor of Workstation through next month. It just seems a little brazen for them to abandon all of the Linux users of WS12.5 (unless they are taking a page from Microsoft's book, with planned obsolescence and all that)...