It can be a common scenario to have to change network adapters in a server or workstation. They break! You might need to replace the 10/100 card with a gigabit card, whatever the reason...eventually you will find yourself cracking the case on the server, blowing the dust out and changing a NIC. Sometimes Windows gets really confused when NIC's are removed and replaced. You might end up with "ghosted" network adapter(s). This means that Windows has drivers/settings for hardware that is not physically in the computer. It's not an uncommon scenario to have "ghosted" devices, especially with USB devices. NIC's, now that's another story! Well, Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 has a "standard" hardware set, meaning that you can copy VHD's from one install of Virtual Server 2005 R2 to another and boot them up just fine. I learned something this week. The hardware is not identical between Virtual Server 2005 R2 and Windows Virtualization (included in Windows Server 2008). I moved one of my virtual installs of Windows from Virtual Server 2005 R2 to Windows Server 2008...and it booted just fine. I didn't realize I had a problem until I started poking around. I had a dynamic IP address...hmmm...ok, let's set it back to static. I tried and got an error saying that the IP was assigned to another NIC...hmmm.....so I did the trick outlined in this article and sure enough I now had a phantom or "ghosted" NIC. I followed the article and was good to go! The takeaway is that the virtual hardware between Windows Server 2008 Virtualization and Virtual Server 2005 R2 is not the same (at the writing of this post, Windows Server 2008 is still in beta, so it may change).
Enjoy!
Petergal