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Uninstall Previous Hardware/Devices after P2V Conversion

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If you find that when you start your New Virtual Machine up and then have problems when assigning the IP Addresses to the Network Cards again after a Physical to Virtual Conversion, You might find that you have missed a small step in which quite a few people either forget or/ don't realise they have to do it.

When you convert a Physical machine all of the Old Hardware/Devices are still inherited over to the new Virtual Image and you have to make sure you remove this before progressing any further, call it a task to complete before saying it's all done! :)

To remove the Ghost Hardware follow the following steps: ( I am going to use Network Adapters as an Example as this is the most common problem people have, when assigning the same IP Address)

  1. Click Start > Run > CMD

  2. Type the following command and press Enter:

    set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1

  3. Type the following command , and press Enter:

    start devmgmt.msc

  4. Click View > Show hidden devices.

  5. Expand Network adapters. The old physical network cards are grayed out.

  6. Right-click on these NICs and click Uninstall.

  7. Once all of the grayed out NICs are uninstalled, assign the IP address to the virtual NIC.

The same procedure applies for other devices which would of been brought over, i.e. Processors, System Devices, Display Adapters, Hard Disks etc.

Note: When you close the command prompt window, Windows clears the devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1 variable that you set in step 2 and prevents ghosted devices from displaying when you click Show hidden devices.

I hope you find this useful, just a simple note to make when doing this kind of procedure.

:)