How To Fix Hyper V Error External Ethernet Adapter Is Already Bound To The Microsoft Virtual Switch

How To Fix Hyper V Error External Ethernet Adapter Is Already Bound To The Microsoft Virtual Switch
ethernet adapter is already bound to the microsoft virtual switch protocol
When I was reinstalling one of my home lab server with Server 2012 (overdue for months now…) I can across the following error when I tried to configure my virtual switch.

external ethernet adapter is already bound to the microsoft virtual switch protocol

After a quick google search I came across a MS support article which described this error to a T.

You need to download the NVSPBind tool seperately from the MSDN website here. After opening the command prompt (in elavated administrator) I ran this command:

nvspbind /u “Friendly NIC Name”

When this was finished I was able to configure the virtual switch to connect to my external NIC.
One thought on “ethernet adapter is already bound to the microsoft virtual switch protocol”
The nuclear option that works with Windows Core is using netcfg to wipe out all your networking settings and re-initialize the network card drivers.

#WARNING! DANGER! THIS WILL DELETE ALL YOUR NETWORKING SETTINGS!
netcfg -d

Microsoft do not recommend you use DC's in a virtual environment because of time skew.

If I was you I would setup yourself a small lab with HyperV in it so you can play about with the options, setting and learn - this way you lose nothing valuable and you can just 'go for it' with things like you have already encountered.

I'll be about if I can be of any use to you, but you can mount the VHD under other products or even convert it to a workstation under VMware - and hopefully fire it up and then perhaps migrate it back to the HyperV host
Networking in Hyper-V commonly confuses newcomers, even those with experience in other hypervisors. The Hyper-V virtual switch presents one of the product’s steeper initial conceptual hurdles. Fortunately, once you invest the time to learn about it, you will find it quite simple. Digesting this article will provide the necessary knowledge to properly plan a Hyper-V virtual switch and understand how it will operate in production. If you know all about the Hyper-V virtual switch and you can skip to a guide on how to create one.

For an overall guide to Hyper-V networking read my post titled “The Complete Guide to Hyper-V Networking“.

A side note on System Center Virtual Machine Manager: I will not spend any time in this article on network configuration for SCVMM. Because that product needlessly over-complicates the situation with multiple pointless layers, the solid grounding on the Hyper-V virtual switch that can be obtained from this article is absolutely critical if you don’t want to be hopelessly lost in VMM.

What is the Hyper-V Virtual Switch?
The very first thing that you must understand is that Hyper-V’s virtual switch is truly a virtual switch. That is to say, it is a software construct operating within the active memory of a Hyper-V host that performs Ethernet frame switching functionality. It can use single or teamed physical network adapters to serve as uplinks to a physical switch in order to communicate with other computers on the physical network. Hyper-V provides virtual network adapters to its virtual machines, and those communicate directly with the virtual switch.

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What are Virtual Network Adapters?
Like the Hyper-V virtual switch, virtual network adapters are mostly self-explanatory. In more detail, they are software constructs that are responsible for receiving and transmitting Ethernet frames into and out of their assigned virtual machine or the management operating system. This article focuses on the virtual switch, so I will only be giving the virtual adapters enough attention to ensure understanding of the switch.

Virtual Machine Network Adapters
The most common virtual network adapters belong to virtual machines. They can be seen in both PowerShell (Get-VMNetworkAdapter) and in Hyper-V Manager’s GUI.

Regards
Quazi Mahmudul Huq
Senior Faculty
IT System Admin
MCT, MCP, MCSA, MCSE, RHCSA, RHCE
RHCSV, CCNA, CCNP, MTCNA, MTCRE

#external #ethernet #adapter

[gg-lfgb]

thank you mr indian IT system Admin you helped me alot today

[VmsCentral]

Thank you.
That fixed my issue with setting network of Hyper-V guest via Android smartphone:
when first time setting up - accidentally disconnect USB.
So next time I connect USB device, and setup the network, issue with bind from the title of this video show up.
So instruction from your video will help to resolve the issue that happen in this situation.

[ONoesBird]

BE CAREFUL! Lost access to my remote computer when doing this... beware if you cannot access the physical computer. When disabling the setting I lost connection (1:54) but regained it when reconnecting as said. It was when i set the virtual switch to use the physical adapter that the REMOTE DESKTOP connection (that was likely the reason the ethernet adapter was bound in the first place) went poof. No no more connections to that remote machine. Be careful! Make sure you have physical access to the server and have a local admin account in case you lose network access.

[TheOirishhAmerican]

that thing is a pain in the rear! Thank you this helped me!

[rocker]

Thanks! I was banging my head trying to figure this out.

[not_sure_about_that_but]

Straight to the point and most importantly it works 👍

[fernandoss]

Solved my issue very efficiently, Thank you !

[msmatheusaugusto]

THX MY FRIEND!! U FIX MY PROBLEM! I LOVE U ❤️

[ITsupportian]

hahahaha... Wow. THanks for explaining

[akejron]

now do the same without clicking with just CLI, this i knew already... cli is the only way.

[oxygenitnz]

Ummm wouldn't this populate the other virtual switches into Private Yes you can cheat the system, but only one external virtual switch is bound to the single nic/team, thats why the Microsoft error comes up. Workaround.... Buy another network card and make more Teams and then virtual switches... :)