VmWare-Workstation 7 - Windows 7 installation

After you enter the license key, Windows 7 Setup loads and then stalls and produces the following error:

Install Windows
The unattend answer file contains an invalid product key. Either remove the invalid key or provide a valid product key in the unattend answer file to proceed with Windows installation.

The suggestion at:
social.answers.microsoft.com resolved the problem.

Solution: "disable the floppy disk option"

HowTo disable the floppy disk option:

Create a New Virtual Machine, once it's created the new VM-name (Windows7 in my case) is displayed in the Sidebar under Favorites.
Right click on it and select "Settings" at the bottom.
Under Device select Floppy
The "Device Status" - "Connect at power on" needs to be _deselected_
For Connection change to "Use a physical drive:" not that this should matter, when it isn't allowed to connect, but I changed the default option to use the floppy image to use the physical drive, just in case.

Then save the settings and Power on the virtual machine.