So, I was getting infuriated with not having a physical wlan0 in VMWare, until I read it wasn't possible due to it being virtualized.
I understand that.
My question is this..

This Gateway I'm on is a spare computer, my main computer is at Sony's service center. It's a model VPCSC-FM1, on THIS laptop I've never had a problem having a eth0 and wlan0 in VMWare.

Why was it possible to do it on my Sony and not now?