Remove the hidden NIC card on Virtual Machine.

I’m sure that you’re already saw this message.

The IP address XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX you have entered for this network adapter is already assigned to another adapter Name of adapter. Name of adapter is hidden from the network and Dial-up Connections folder because it is not physically in the computer or is a legacy adapter that is not working.

In fact the in the KB from VMware that I found, shows you what to do in case you see this message when wanting to assign a static IP adress to your VM. And this happens quite often since not only the P2V process is the principal cause of the trouble.  This happens when:

·         you did P2V conversion of your physical server and the physical network card stays registered in the registry and hidden in the Device manager.

·         you upgrade to a new version of virtual hardware.

·         you added or removed network adapters several times.

·         In all those above situations you’ll end up with an error like that.

 To solve the trouble,  you need to get rid of this ghosted NIC card, but first you must see it in the Device Manager…. The process of  how to show ghosted devices in Device Manager and how to remove them has already been documented on my blog, but I don’t think that it’s been associated with such an error and context. So It’s never too late to remember what to do to remove those devices.

01. Open command prompt and type: set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1

02. Still during you’re in the command window type: devmgmt.msc

03. Now when you open Device Manager and in the menu you’ll choose show hidden devices, you’ll see all the devices which are no longer present in the VM and you can remove them.