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?