Non-present Network Adapter issues

A while back I changed our virtualization platform from VirtualIron to MS Hyper-V and that caused all network adapters to disappear on my VMs. Hyper-V installed its own. So when i tried to set fixed IP addresses to new adapters I got the following message: “The IP address XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX you have entered for this network adapter is already assigned…”

I thought the best way to resolve this issue was to remove the source of the problem (in this case these old VirtualIron network adapters), which is a bit hard to do if you can’t see these adapters.   After digging around I found a nice MS KB article 269155, which helped me to reveal and remove those non present hidden devices.

Here’s what i did to reveal non present hidden devices.

1. Click Start, click Run, type cmd.exe, and then press ENTER.
2. Type set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1, and then press ENTER.
3. Type Start devmgmt.msc, and then press ENTER.
4. Click View, and then click Show Hidden Devices.
5. Expand the Network Adapters tree.
6. Right-click the dimmed network adapter, and then click Uninstall.

-Eric

Source: MS KB