After P2V (VMware), VM loses its Default Gateway Address

I ran into this issue this morning. Yesterday I P2V'd a Windows 7 "server" (don't get me started) that synchronizes nightly with a remote server over the internet. The P2V was successful, and the application passed inspection by the department that used it.

This morning we found out that the server did not synchronize. The first thing I did was run an ipconfig, which revealed that there was no default gateway set! I KNOW I set that. I also know that I've seen this issue before, and it has to do with two different network adapters having the same default gateway setting.

There are two things you need to do to fix this issue, but both are pretty easy. You can do it while the server is running if you are careful not to delete the wrong network adapter.

The first thing you need to do:

1. Open an administrative command prompt
2. type: set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1
3. In the same command prompt window, type: devmgmt.msc
4. Now, in the device manager window that just opened, click View-> Show Hidden Devices
5. Under the Network Adapters branch, you should see a "greyed out" adapter. This is the inactive adapter.
6. Right click on the inactive adapter and choose uninstall. I left the drivers behind.

** NOTE **: It seems like this is also a great way to see if a system you are working on was P2V'd at some point. I also notice other now-disconnected hardware, like the old physical video adapter, when I'm in this view.

The second thing you need to do:

1. Open Regedit
2. Navigate to HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces
3. Underneath that branch, you should see at least one long CLSID that looks like this {542A742-AF234.....}
4. Click on that, and you should recognize the settings - it's your active network adapter. If you had more than one CLSID, click between the different CLSIDs to find the one with the IPAddress that corresponds to your main adapter.
5. Write down what your default gateway is, if you don't know it by heart. 
6. Right-click on the "DefaultGateway" item and click modify.
7. Select all of the text in the large "Value Data" field and delete it, then carefully type in your default gateway and click the OK button.

The reason behind step two is that sometimes an invisible line return character gets added to the value, either in front or behind, and that can make the setting misbehave on reboot.