Removing "ghost" network names from bridged adapter list

[mpack]

Well, it's either Windows directly, or it's Qt or Windows providing a "recent list" for a form field. Not much can be done about either of the latter.

[deKay]

Yep. That's the only place any such list would be, and it isn't there. So the Windows OS is providing that list, deKay, and not Virtualbox. You'll have to hunt in a Windows forum & searches to get rid of them.

I've exhausted all my options there, bar reinstalling Windows.

[socratis]

To tell you the truth, I didn't quite like the "VLAN" part after some of the adapters. I see one NIC only with "Intel(R)82579V Gigabit Network Connection" and the rest all start with a "VLAN: " and something that you obfuscated on purpose. BTW, why is that thing obfuscated???

[deKay]

To tell you the truth, I didn't quite like the "VLAN" part after some of the adapters. I see one NIC only with "Intel(R)82579V Gigabit Network Connection" and the rest all start with a "VLAN: " and something that you obfuscated on purpose. BTW, why is that thing obfuscated???

Because it's the name of a physical place that's not important to the reason why it isn't working.

Let's call it Geoff, because Geoff has a luxurious beard.

On my PC I physically have one network card, called "Ethernet" and is "Intel(R)82579V Gigabit Network Connection". I have two VLANs from this, one called Geoff and one called Geoff 2. They're referenced as "Intel(R)82579V Gigabit Network Connection - VLAN : Geoff" and "Intel(R)82579V Gigabit Network Connection - VLAN : Geoff 2". Some VMs use one, some use the other. Frequently I have to swap from one to the other in VirtualBox. This always worked fine.

That's all I have in Control Panel\Network and Internet\Network Connections - just:

"Intel(R)82579V Gigabit Network Connection"
"Intel(R)82579V Gigabit Network Connection - VLAN : Geoff"
"Intel(R)82579V Gigabit Network Connection - VLAN : Geoff 2"

In the past I had a few others, like a USB one and Bluetooth and Hamachi, but they are long gone and using a variety of tools have all been removed from everywhere in Windows I can think of and has been suggested to me here and elsewhere. In VirtualBox all the connections I have ever had seem to be listed.

That was OK, because I just ignored them.

However, after Windows 10 installed the Creators Update, "Intel(R)82579V Gigabit Network Connection - VLAN : Geoff" and "Intel(R)82579V Gigabit Network Connection - VLAN : Geoff 2" now appear twice each in the list in VirtualBox (not not in Windows itself). They have the same names, but only one of each actually works.

Sure, I could try to remember which one is the right one and which one is the broken one, or I could ask here how to remove the wrong ones (and all the other ghost ones while I'm at it).

[socratis]

after Windows 10 installed the Creators Update

or I could ask here how to remove the wrong ones

Or you could ask Microsoft.

[Martin]

It seems that Microsoft did change something in the latest Windows 10 versions so that the established "device cleanup" methods are not sufficient anymore.
Windows 10 keeps remembering the "old" adapters somewhere else and still reports them as existing to Virtualbox.

[socratis]

Windows 10 keeps remembering the "old" adapters somewhere else

And that "somewhere else" isn't the registry? Unless they locked the keys down with no-read access, you could search for them. Even if they were no-read access to the users, surely the Admins must have read-only. So, by running Regedit with Run-As-Administrator, you could at least find out where in the seven kingdoms these things are.

Unless they went bat-crazy and they have System:FullAccess, Everyone:NoAccess, which would make it kinda difficult...

[Martin]

That's just what I concluded from earlier threads where more than one other user wrote that they did find nothing related in the registry.

[mpack]

And that "somewhere else" isn't the registry?

I rather doubt it. I don't think it's a config feature, I believe it's just a "recent text" feature, like typing into a text field in a search box. Windows is remembering that this textbox in this dialog from this app previously had this selection of strings stored. The data will be in temp files somewhere in the ...\AppData folder area.

I don't think it's even a particularly new feature. I'm not sure when they started, but Win10 definitely makes heavier use of this kind of thing.

[deKay]

Windows 10 keeps remembering the "old" adapters somewhere else

And that "somewhere else" isn't the registry? Unless they locked the keys down with no-read access, you could search for them. Even if they were no-read access to the users, surely the Admins must have read-only. So, by running Regedit with Run-As-Administrator, you could at least find out where in the seven kingdoms these things are.

Unless they went bat-crazy and they have System:FullAccess, Everyone:NoAccess, which would make it kinda difficult...

Actually, I did find a "Network2" somewhere in the registry which is indeed locked down so nobody, not even admins, can access it, read it, or take ownership. Wonder if it's there?

[socratis]

I believe it's just a "recent text" feature, like typing into a text field in a search box.

I'm willing to bet the farm against it. I really, really doubt that this field is cached in one way or another. 1) There are no signs of anything similarly related (USB devices for example, why not) and 2) If it is the case, that's a huge, huge bug. Not the kind I'm used to from VirtualBox.

[deKay]

OK. I set up a different Windows 10 PC, and installed VirtualBox on it. I moved the contents of my .VirtualBox and VM Machines folders from my user folder on my original PC over to the new PC...

And the phantom adapters are still listed. Along with those on the new PC, but still there.

They *must* be in a VirtualBox config file somewhere.

[mpack]

They *must* be in a VirtualBox config file somewhere.

They're text files. Look for yourself, use the search function in Notepad++, whatever.

The only thought that has recently occurred to me is that the devs might have tried to fix an old problem of being unable to render a drop down menu in the obvious way (highlighting the current selection) because the currently selected NIC does not exist and hence isn't in the list. So, the fix might have been to simply add it to the list retrieved from Windows. In this case all you'd have to do is alter all bridge connections to attach to NICs that DO exist, and then restart VirtualBox (VBoxSVC). That ought to clear them out.

[socratis]

I moved the contents of my .VirtualBox and VM Machines folders from my user folder on my original PC over to the new PC... And the phantom adapters are still listed. Along with those on the new PC, but still there.

I did the same experiment. Test_VM with 4 NICs, each Bridged to a different real NIC on my OSX host. Copied the VM over to my Win7 host. Added the VM and lo and behold, under the Network properties of the VM, I can see the 4 non-existent (on my Win7 host) bridged option. However, if I click on the Network option, only the 3 available on my host appear on my drop-down list.

So, yes, the configuration/recipe (the .vbox file) has the non-existent NICs included. If I try to run the VM, I get an "Incorrect network configuration" error. BUT, If I go in the Network options, only the real NICs appear on the drop-down list control, none of the non-existing ones.

For completion, here's the error:

Could not start the machine Test_VM because the
following physical network interfaces were not
found:

en4: Thunderbolt Ethernet (adapter 1),
en0: Wi-Fi (AirPort) (adapter 2),
en2: Thunderbolt 2 (adapter 3),
en1: Thunderbolt 1 (adapter 4)

You can either change the machine's network
settings or stop the machine.

[deKay]

I think I'm just going to live with it. It's an annoyance, but not the end of the world. Obviously a simple fix isn't possible!