Updates are free for licensed VMWare Workstation users just as it was pre-Broadcom purchase. You still get zero support with no support contract. The automated update completely fails though. I just successfully updated to the latest available version of 17. Here is how I did it:
Enter this URL in your web browser to download the tar:
https://softwareupdate.vmware.com/cds/vmw-desktop/ws/17.6.1/24319023/windows/core/VMware-workstation-17.6.1-24319023.exe.tar
After this download completed, use a utility to extract the contents of the tar top a new directory. Extract both files. I used PKware Secure Zip to do this, but there are plenty of utilities to extract from a tar.
Execute the VMware-workstation-17.6.1-24319023.exe as administrator to initiate the update. Reboot when prompted after it completed. You will be good to go after doing this.