OK, so it's not just VMware, but it is Enterprise edition, right? As I only saw that issue on it, and left it as is as one day I did fix it for myself then people started reporting issues in inverse, so I reverted it, that was about a year ago.
Probably obvious: if pid.txt is there, copy paste the key from it into the Unattended page, Setup Product Key, or use Autofill in the toolbar to do it automatically.