VMware Tools crash on login using Workstation 9.0.1

On a fresh installation of Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Core x64 SP2 on VMware Workstation 9.0.1 I am reliably seeing a crash in the VMware Tools Core Service (vmtoolsd.exe) nearly everytime immediately on logon. The installation is completely fresh with VMware Tools installed immediately after the initial operating system configuration completed. The exact error I'm receiving is as follows:

VMware Tools unrecoverable error: (vthread-3)

Exception 0xc0000005 (access violation) has occurred.

I took a look at the VMware KB but nothing really seemed to match what I'm seeing:

• VMware Tools on a Windows virtual machine fails with the error: Exception 0xc0000005 (access violation)
  Error is identical but only seems to apply to a Tools upgrade scenario and this is a fresh install. I checked for duplicates anyway but found none.
• Upgrading VMware Tools to Fusion 4 or Workstation 8 fails with error: VMware Tools unrecoverable error
  Error is identical but this issue was fixed back in Workstation 8.0.1 so shouldn't apply.
• Upgrading to VMware Tools 5.1 causes log spew in the Windows Event Log: Error in the RPC receive loop
  This error is the closest and on adding in the tools.conf configuration the subsequent reboot didn't crash so I initially thought it was fixed. However, the subsequent reboot had the same problem again; I verified the tools.conf was still in place to be sure (which it was).

Interestingly, at the time of this issue I was also setting up several other VMs listed below. Only the Server 2008 Core VM sees this issue making me think it's something specific to this particular OS. Perhaps a missing DLL VMware expects to exist given this is a Core type install? Other VMs installed fine:

• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 x64 SP2
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 SP1
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Core x64 SP1
• Microsoft Windows Server 2012 x64
• Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Core x64

I've attached a couple of crash dumps if anyone from VMware wishes to investigate futher. If anyone else has advice it'd be greatly appreciated!