Virtual ethernet card “Network adapter 1” is not supported – SOLVED

Another day, another VMware problem. I am trying to migrate VM through vCenter (6.7) and the compatibility check produces following warning:

Virtual ethernet card “Network adapter 1” is not supported. “This is not a limitation of the host in general, but of the virtual machine’s configured guest OS on the selected host.”

Maybe you are too seeing something like this. The “warning” status of the second host is just memory utilization.

If you ignore the warning, the migration will take place as usual. But we will look into what may be causing it and how to fix it.

The machine in question is several years old and its virtual hardware used to be “Version 9 on ESXi 5.5”. It was updated regularly up to current “Version 14 on ESXi 6.7”. The OS was originally “Windows Server 2008 R2” and then it was upgraded (i know, dirty word) to “Windows Server 2012 R2” and then again to “Windows Server 2016”. And this complicated history is root of my problems.

I will remove the network adapter and then create brand new one. Here is how to do it if you are not sure:

1. Log in the OS, write down current configuration of the network adapter if you need to, then go to device manager and uninstall the network adapter.
2. Shut down the server from OS or in vCenter, right click the VM and shut it down (Power, Shut Down Guest OS). Wait until its done.
3. In vCenter right click the VM again and “Edit Settings”. Expand “Network adapter 1” and delete it. Click OK.
4. Right click the VM once again go to “Edit Settings”. Click “Add New Device”, choose “Network Adapter”. Pick your network where this VM should be and dont forget to check “connected” and click OK.
5. Turn on the machine, log-in and setup the new adapter as you need to.

And now is the time to try migration again, is the warning gone? Let me know in the comments.

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