How do I stop a Virtual Computer from generating a fresh network connection when the gateway mac changes?

Question

If you move a virtual machine to a new network with a different mac address on the gateway a new connection will be generated at the connection level . The virtual NIC will be the same ID but the connection will be new. For a cluster server this is bad news, because all the cluster network resources are bound to the now absent connection. On a physical computer this does not happen.

Is there a method to STOP windows from generating new networks each time various parameters change? This is the reason that RunasTI was written to hack about in network2 registry to fix this sort of problem - seems unnecessary if only it could be stopped.

Answer 1

Hello, Thank you for posting in Q&A forum. This is a default logic generate a new network connection when NIC gets a new MAC address. The Network Location Awareness service provider, commonly referred to as NLA, enables Windows Sockets applications to identify the logical network to which a Windows computer is attached. Please try to disable NLA service and reproduce the issue for test purpose and see if it helps. Please notice that it's not recommended to disable NLA service always. REF: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/winsock/the-role-of-nla-2 To help other customers who may be facing the same issue, please don't forget to vote if the reply is helpful. Best Regards,
Shujun

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