‘Missing’ network adapters in Hyper-V Server 2008 R2

When you choose option 8 in sconfig you may notice that sconfig lists fewer network adapters than there are actually physically available. It is also possible that sconfig shows no network adapters at all.

Although it may not be obvious, there is a simple reason behind this. Sconfig only shows ‘active network interfaces’ by running the following WMI query:

"SELECT * FROM Win32_NetworkAdapterConfiguration where IPenabled=TRUE"

This query returns active network adapters or more accurately network adapters with an IP configuration. When network adapters have no physical connection, neither APIPA, static IP or DHCP configured IP will exist and so sconfig shows no information for those adapters.

The solution to this, if you want to list the adapters or configure IP on any of them, is to use NetShell (netsh).