I would suspect that the vast majority of us DON'T have this VMware issue - I certainly don't have it installed and get no such tag lines.
There is some considerable confusion here...
Correct me if I misunderstand...
You details used to say MAC SUp v6, but recently you've updated them to XP SUp v8.
Your problem is with your XP v8 set up.
You say you don't have VMware installed on your PC.
However, you then go on to speak of 'Access the VMware instance disk and plant the plugins folder within it.' π how would you have this available to be found, IF it's not installed ??
VMware [Fusion] is software to emulate other OSs, it isn't needed by PC users, but some MAC users might have it to run PC only applications... There are many other VMware applications that manage large networks and so on - do you have such a setup or IT department who should be resolving this... however, if you as a lowly 'user' can install executables I suspect not... I know of no one having this issue or even having VMware installed...
You speak of installing v8 of 'Sketchup' and 'Sketchup Pro'. There is no real difference between them - if the current installation finds a license you get 'Pro' features, if not it runs as 'Free'. When you download the 'Free' version you are not asked for any details, but when you get the 'Pro' time limited trial you give your details. However, if you subsequently get a Pro license [when you will again have to give your details] - or you subsequently 'remove' a license - then you should find that the version of Sketchup available to you will toggle between the 'Pro' and 'Free' versions, using the same installed files...
Do you have any other applications that launch with VMware messages ?
Have you tried completely uninstalling all of your versions of Sketchup and reinstalling the Pro version ?
We must assume that you are not doing something complicated like trying to run it across a network or by some virtual desktop/login gizmo π
I am still confused about your set up and what you do to get/stop these weirdnesses ...