I am deploying vms to remote sites using OVA's instead of templates since they are compressed this way. I am looking for a way to prevent ghosted NICs or to deal with ghosted nics. We have to deploy the same 4 VMs to dozens of sites but everytime that I deploy them we have the same problem. The NIC binding order gets changed, the connection names are lost and replaced with "local area connection" names, and the NIC settings are all changed (protocols and such). I need the clone VMs to be identical to the orginals vms.
I fix the problem by deleting the ghosted nics in the OS and resetting ups the NICs as they are suppose to be. Here's the ghosted nic deletion processs.
set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1
start devmgmt
>Show hidden devices
>delete hidden NICs
Anyone have any insights on how to deal with this issue more gracefully?