Posted on August 5, 2009 - by martin

VMware converter: remove hidden networkcard (nic)

If you convert a physical machine to a virtual machine you’ll probably give it the same ip as it used to have. But when you try to modify the ip address in the TCP/IP settings of your vmware nic you’ll get the error that there is an existing NIC with the same IP address settings. This is where your search starts, but you can’t seem to find another NIC in your VM.

The Old NIC is a sort of ghost NIC, you can reveal this NIC by doing to following:

1. Go to the DOS-prompt
2. Type: ” SET DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES=1 “ and press <enter>
3. Type: ” Start devmgmt.msc ” and press <enter>
4. In the Device Manager go to View and click on ” Show Hidden Devices “
5. Navigate to the Network Adapters and expand it, there should be your old NIC
6. Select and delete.

Now you can set the correct IP address without getting to error notification