Make Device Manager show devices that have been physically removed

When a device has been physically removed from a server, but was not uninstalled, Windows Server 2003 will hide the device from device manager, but may keep a record of it. However, these hidden devices are not shown by simply choosing the seemingly obvious "Show Hidden Devices" option from the menu.

You might commonly see a lot of these ghost devices when replacing hardware or transplanting the installation to a new server (physical or virtual). Problems can arise for things like network adapters, where the phantom adapters may still believe they have a hard-coded IP address that you wish to assign to another adapter.

To force device manager to display devices that are no longer present in the computer, set the devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices environment variable before launching device manager:

1. Open a command prompt by clicking Start -> Run and typing cmd, then press Enter.
2. Type: set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1 to set the environment variable and press Enter.
3. Start device manager from the same command-prompt window by typing: devmgmt.msc (or you could also use the computer management interface, compmgmt.msc) and press Enter.
4. To actually show the missing devices, you must then click View -> Show Hidden Devices in the menu.

The missing devices will appear with a translucent icon beside them. You can then uninstall any non-existent devices that are no longer required by right-clicking them and choosing Uninstall. Be careful as some of these "missing" devices may actually be system devices. Only remove devices that you are sure are no longer needed.

Of course, if you want device manager to always display these devices, you could set the environment variable permanently through My Computer -> Properties -> Advanced -> Environment Variables.

For more information, see Microsoft Support Article 269155

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