As an update I realize for kernel version 3.8.7 that vmci was not actually compiling successfully. Following the pointers in this article I was able to get vmci to compile and consequently vmblock also compiled. It seems that vmblock is the module I need to have running in order for shared folders to work. After a reboot vmblock does not load:
[root@localhost ~]# lsmod | grep vm
vmw_balloon 13415 0
vmci 90030 1 vsock
vmwgfx 130958 3
ttm 79629 1 vmwgfx
drm 264680 4 ttm,vmwgfx
[root@localhost ~]#
And there is a now a /mnt/hgfs directory which is empty.
vmblock does not load manually:
[root@localhost ~]# modprobe vmblock
modprobe: FATAL: Module vmblock not found.
[root@localhost ~]#
And if I attempt to add and removed the shared folder in settings while the vm runs I receive this error:
"Unable to update run-time folder sharing status: There was an error mounting Shared Folders file system inside the guest operating system"