Have you ever had devices that where stuck on your system and you needed to remove them. For example someone removed a physical network card from the system without uninstalling it first from the OS. This can be a problem if that network card had a static IP assigned to it. Once you add a new network card using the same static IP that was assigned to the previous network card it will give you an error.
If this were to happen normally you would go to device manager and simply uninstall the device. Well what if they don’t display? That means they are hidden. It is a good thing there is a way to un-hide them so you can uninstall them.
I have created a batch file that contains this:
cd\
c:
set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1
start devmgmt.msc
exit
Just download below and run it.
Then Device manager will open up. (NOTE: You have to open device manager from a command prompt. The batch file does this for you.)
Then select view and “Show Hidden Devices” these devices will now show up when you expand a section.
Reference: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315539
