How to remove a static IP configuration for an absent network adapter or uninstall hidden network adapter
In a scenario where you have physically removed hardware from a machine you can no longer see it in device manager. This does not mean that it is gone. Evidence of that is, if for example you had a network card that had a Static IP address set and you remove the card and add a new one then try to set the IP address to the same as the old NIC you will get an error message. The error might look something like “The IP address 192.168.30.100 you have entered for this network adapter is already assigned to another adapter (Microsoft Virtual machine Bus Network Adapter #3) which is no longer present in the computer. If the same address is assigned to both adapters and they both become active, only one of them will use this address. This may result in incorrect system configuration”. In Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 it actually gives you an opportunity to “remove the static IP configuration for the absent adapter”. If you say Yes, this will eliminate the ...