Show hidden devices in Device Manager (Hyper-V network adapter)

When I tried to configure the adapter, the following error occurred: “The IP address <ip address> you have entered for this network adapter is already assigned to another adapter…”

So, in order to uninstall the old network adapter do the following:

1. Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, and then click Command Prompt.
2. At a command prompt, type the following command , and then press ENTER:
   • set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1
3. Type the following command a command prompt, and then press ENTER:
   • start devmgmt.msc
4. Troubleshoot the devices and drivers in Device Manager.NOTE: Click Show hidden devices on the View menu in Device Manager before you can see devices that are not connected to the computer.
5. When you finish troubleshooting, close Device Manager.
6. Type exit at the command prompt.Note that when you close the command prompt window, Window clears the devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1 variable that you set in step 2 and prevents ghosted devices from being displayed when you click Show hidden devices.

There is a KB article about this. Although the article applies to Windows XP only, the solution worked very well on Windows Server 2003.