Installing a Loopback Adaptor in Windows Vista
This week I installed Windows Vista Beta 2 on my laptop.And much to my surprise it went very smooth. The only thing that I still have problems with is the integrated Bluetooth module on my HP. But I'm leaving it like it is for now.
The next step that I wanted to do is to install Virtual Server and create a Team foundation server on it.
So I did. And of course I need to be able to connect to it over network. But since I'm working disconnected from any company network most of the time and I need 2 way communication between host (my visual studio development machine) and client (the virtual Team foundation server), I found out on previous installations (XP + WS2003) that the best way to do this is add a loop back adaptor to the host and make both machines connect to it.
So I set off to add a loop back adaptor to my Vista host like I did so many times before on my XP installs.
Add Hardware -> Install manually -> Network Adaptor -> ... euhm, damn I should be able to select Microsoft as a manufacturer here, but the list is empty!?!
So after some searching the net I found this nifty little tool called devcon.
This tool allows you add devices from cmd line. And it works like this:
Download the DevCon compressed file, and then extract the files:
a. Visit the following Microsoft Web site for download: DevCon
b. Save the Devcon.exe file to a folder on your computer, and then open the folder.
c. Double-click Devcon.exe.
d. In the Unzip to path box, type the folder where you want to unzip the files, and then click Unzip.
e. Click OK, and then Close to complete the unzip process.
2. Install the Microsoft Loopback Adapter:
a. At a command prompt, change directory to the folder where you extracted the DevCon files.
b. Change directory to the i386 folder.
c. Type devcon.exe install %windir%\inf\netloop.inf *msloop, and then press ENTER. You see output that is similar to the following:
Device node created. Install is complete when drivers are updated...
Updating drivers for *msloop from C:\WINDOWS\inf\netloop.inf.
Drivers updated successfully.
And behold, it works!
Now all you need to do is assign both the host and the guest a static Ip in the same subnet mask and you're in business!
posted by Dave @ 08:14
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