Solved vEthernet adapter appeared and can't remove

Recently discovered a vEthernet adapter appearing in the adapter settings of Network and Sharing. I don't know when it got installed, maybe during the 24H2 update. The thing is I can't make any changes to it like stop it from being the default, uninstall it or disable it. Very frustrating as I'm not much of a virtual machine user so I don't normally have the virtual features enabled.

So I enabled Hyper V and Hyper Visor then rebooted. Went to the Hyper V manager and still could do nothing with the adapter. Unselected both features, rebooted and the adapter is still there with options to delete still greyed out.

Getting very frustrated especially since it shows as the default adapter, I didn't install it, and seems I can't do anything about it. Anybody have any experience with this and is it a requirement of 24H2 that is always there? Thanks.

PS: It doesn't show in ipconfig

Virtual network card is installed when you enable hyper-v platform or an item which needs a piece of integrated Windows virtualization, like WSA for example. vEthernet exists across Default Virtual Switch, which cannot be deleted. Otherwise uninstalling hyper-v and all its dependencies.

That gets installed by Hyper-V. You would need to uninstall Hyper-V to get rid of it. The Default Switch in Hyper-V allows Hyper-V guests to access the network via NAT.

hsehestedt said:

That gets installed by Hyper-V. You would need to uninstall Hyper-V to get rid of it. The Default Switch in Hyper-V allows Hyper-V guests to access the network via NAT.

Click to expand...

So just unchecking Hyper-V in features doesn't get rid of it? Weird part is I didn't have it checked as an added feature when the adapter appeared. Enabling Hyper-V , rebooting then disabling and rebooting didn't get rid of it either. Not aware of anything on my system that needs vEthernet adapter and very annoyed it shows as the default switch.

Could Avast antivirus be doing it? Have had a few years though and never saw this before.

The virtual card does not appear like that. You should have installed a program that activated a virtual feature of HV.

Have you read my previous post ?

timofort said:

The virtual card does not appear like that. You should have installed a program that activated a virtual feature of HV.

Have you read my previous post ?

Click to expand...

I just don't know what that would be. I have found 2 wifi direct virtual direct adapters in hidden items in Device Manager. They reappear after a reboot when I uninstall/delete them. So yes something is creating them. I'll have to keep digging.

OK, I think I might know what created it and why it won't go away. I was playing with Phone Link a while back and it seems it does setup a virtual adapter. Even when Phone Link is disabled the virtual adapter stays. Would probably have to nuke the entire app but it is heavily embedded in the system and don't think I want to go through that right now. Thanks to all, it got me looking deeper into it.

Try this :

go to old control panel, then "programs and features", then "Turn Windows Features On or Off". Inside new box, you can see which features are enabled. You should find items related to HV. If so, disable these features and reboot.

timofort said:

Try this :

go to old control panel, then "programs and features", then "Turn Windows Features On or Off". Inside new box, you can see which features are enabled. You should find items related to HV. If so, disable these features and reboot.

Click to expand...

Thanks maybe I didn't explain it well before but I did all that. Pretty sure it was created when I updated Phone Link and enabled it. I'm not going to try to completely remove it as I've read some horror stories about attempting to that. Also this short note by Microsoft: Phone Link Uninstall