Delete hidden vNIC, the Eric Siebert way

A funny thing happened this afternoon. Usually, when you know there’s a hidden NIC in a VM, you simply run the command, set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1. Then you’ll see the hidden device in Device Manager. Well that didn’t happen to me.

The virtual hardware showed an e1000 vNIC installed in this VM, but no icon showed up in Network Connections.

I googled around and found a VMTN forum post by Eric Siebert (@ericsiebert) which I can’t find again to reference. He said you have to open Device Manager (with devmgmt.msc) from the same command prompt that you ran the “set” command shown above. When you do this, then choose View > Show hidden devices, from the Menu bar, you’ll see the hidden devices. From here, simply right click the hidden devices and choose to uninstall. You should be golden from here on out.

Cheers!

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