Thanks for the feedback.
Regarding the drivers. The virtual machine/the guest OS is installed on "virtual" hardware. VMware configures/presents this virtual "hardware" to the guest OS in a way that the important drivers (storage, network, ...) are recognized by the OS out of the box. For Windows 7 this is e.g. an Intel E1000 network adapter, LSI SAS storage, ... However, there are also components which require additional drivers to work properly. These drivers are included in the VMware Tools which you usually install right after the OS.
André