Windows – With VMware Workstation, how can I SSH from the host to a guest with NAT

Is sshd listening on 172.16.100.128 on the guest (linux) machine? -> grep Listen /etc/ssh/sshd.conf

[forget the above]

Summary:

The host OS only sees the outside interface of the NATted network, so you need to set up port forwarding to the NATted network in order to access one of the NATted hosts in that network, as there could be many hosts in there hidden behind one IP. (As is the case with any NATted network.)

  Host Only Network  |  Separate Network  |
                     |                    |
      ╔Guest 1       |      ╔═Guest 1     |
  Host╣              |     Host           |
      ╚Guest 2       |      ╚═Guest 2     |

In both VirtualBox and VMWare Workstation, host only network connects the host and guests with a virtual switch and they can ping each other directly. So OP issue cannot be reproduced.

If a separate network is used instead, guests can still ping each other with routing by the host. Here's how.

Enable IP Routing of Windows Host

Method 1: IPEnableRouter

reg add HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters /v IPEnableRouter /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
::Reboot for it to take effect.

Method 2: RRAS

sc config RemoteAccess start= auto
sc start RemoteAccess
::Reboot is not needed.

Confirm IP Routing is on by ipconfig /all | find "Routing".
You should see IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : Yes.
Set default gateways of guests to their respective host adapter.
Now guests can ping each other through the host (with ICMP echo request/reply allowed in firewall, of course).