How do I *lose* an old Network adapter?

This has been irritating me for some time now and I don't know how to fix it.

Once my machine had an old NIC which later got replaced. At the time I didn't disassociate its (static) IP address from the card and I installed the new card, setting the machine's IP address.

Ever since then whenever I make any changes to the network properties I get the message...

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The IP address 192.168.0.12 you have entered for this network adapter is already assigned to another adapter '3Com Etherlink III ISA (3C509b-Combo)'. '3Com Etherlink III ISA (3C509b-Combo)' is hidden from the |Network and Dial-up connections folder because it is not physically in the computer or is a legacy adapter that is not working. If the same address is assigned to both adpaters and they both become active, only one of them will use this address. This may result in incorrect system configuration.

Do you want to enter a different IP address for this adapter in the list of IP addresses in the Advanced dialog box?
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So the question is, in Windows 2000 Pro, how do I remove this hidden connection between a non-existant NIC and the IP address?

reinstall the NIC, reset the settings, uninstall old NIC, then reinstall new NIC.... I guess...

-OR-

Just uninstall all network cards, remove TCP/IP in the network properties, and then reinstall it all.

That should clear it up as well.

Well, OK, I *could* do either of those but there's got to be a proper way! It's a lot of fuss killing TCP/IP and reinstalling it just to remove something I don't want. I doubt if I've got the old network card now anyway.

Ken.

Have you tried opening ipconfig

And then doing a /release or a /renew

http://compnetworking.about.com/cs/w...wipaddrwxp.htm

But somehow I think you are going to need the old NIC.

I dunno, maybe someone else has a better suggestion?

He's using static IPs...I think reinstalling TCP/IP would be the best way.

Your adapters are not present so you need to make device manager show them to you - create a batch file with the following text-

@echo off
echo Setting 'show hidden devices'.........
set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1
echo ...done
echo.
echo Now ready to open Device Manager -
echo don't forget to click VIEW - Show Hidden Devices....
pause
start devmgmt.msc

Run it and then uninstall the missing adapters through device manager.

Now this is looking more like it :-) I'll give it a try and report back.

Ken.

Well it'#s certainly allowed me to get rid of the unwanted device.

i can'r help feeling that if I'd just started up device manager and selected "Show Hidden Devices", I'd have got the same result... if only I'd realised that the option was there!

Ken.

glad you got it sorted out Ken,

nice work Curio!

seems this thread has lots of views

cheers!

Indeed. Glad to hear it is sorted.

You definitely need the command 'set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1' before they will show up. You can include the directive in your Environment Variables if you want it enabled permamnently.