Hello, Is it possible to change the IP address range used by the Hyper-V (Default Switch) that is 172.x.x.x to 192.168.x.x ? This is for Hyper-V on windows 10 1809 to 1909 Thread source link: https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/6b2a9042-c590-4b5d-aa4c-60eb3f7901e8/change-hyperv-default-switch-ip-address-range?forum=winserverhyperv

Hi LMichel, We are unable to remove default Switch on windows 10 and unable to change the IP address range. "The Hyper-V Default Switch will randomly use one these IP address ranges based on the host system IP address: Start IP: 192.168.0.0 – End IP: 192.168.255.255 Start IP: 172.17.0.0 – End IP: 172.31.255.255 The Default Switch has a built-in local collision detection mechanism to determine if IP address in these ranges is already assigned to a network interface on the Local Host system and will try to find a (/28 – 255.255.255.240) address space within one of these ranges that is not already allocated to any network interfaces. The Default Switch on the Host system always assign the first IP address of the chosen range to the virtual Ethernet Adaptor on the Host, and use this address as the Default Gateway and DNS server provided to the hosted VMs connected to it. You cannot remove or manage "DHCP" on the default switch." Thanks for your time! Best Regards,

Came across this issue. Tried to use the PowerShell scripts at the bottom of the page to update the IP address, but they appear to stop the NAT functionality of the Default Switch from working. I have submitted a suggestion to the Windows Feedback Hub for Windows Insiders that the subnets used (or not used) by the Default Switch should be configurable https://aka.ms/AAinerp Please click the link and upvote to get this fixed.

Change Hyper-V (Default Switch) IP address range

Accepted answer

Xiaowei He 9,871 Reputation points

2020-07-16T08:16:15.167+00:00
Hi LMichel,

We are unable to remove default Switch on windows 10 and unable to change the IP address range.

"The Hyper-V Default Switch will randomly use one these IP address ranges based on the host system IP address:

Start IP: 192.168.0.0 – End IP: 192.168.255.255

Start IP: 172.17.0.0 – End IP: 172.31.255.255

The Default Switch has a built-in local collision detection mechanism to determine if IP address in these ranges is already assigned to a network interface on the Local Host system and will try to find a (/28 – 255.255.255.240) address space within one of these ranges that is not already allocated to any network interfaces.

The Default Switch on the Host system always assign the first IP address of the chosen range to the virtual Ethernet Adaptor on the Host, and use this address as the Default Gateway and DNS server provided to the hosted VMs connected to it.

You cannot remove or manage "DHCP" on the default switch."

Thanks for your time!

Best Regards,
Please sign in to rate this answer.

2 people found this answer helpful.
Ethan-8192 16 Reputation points

2020-07-16T18:48:31.86+00:00

The problem is with a VPN client; sometime after the collision detection mechanism; addresses and routes are added that overlap with the network selection made by the hyper-v default switch. It would be MUCH more practical to allow users to exclude network ranges that are known to be incompatible with their environments; instead of making them play reboot roulette over and over again hoping that it magically picks a network segment that is "stable" and can allow them to both be connected to a VM and to a VPN at the same time.

In my case; if I could "pin" hyper-v default switch to 192.168.128.0 /17 it would solve my current challenges; however I'm a sure that others have different requirements.

Please don't assume you know more than your users about their networking needs. :)

Mark Lewis 16 Reputation points

2020-11-13T10:18:45.573+00:00

Hi Xiaowei

Just to re-iterate Ethans point on this, it's causing issue with an AO VPN, It would be useful to have an option to set it to something that we can control. Is there anything we can do to request this feature?

Thanks

Anonymous

2020-11-13T10:29:32.24+00:00

That would be great idea as it generates a lot of conflicts on my machine especially with docker desktop when it uses the a sbunet of 192.168.0.0

J. Greg Mackinnon 6 Reputation points

2021-07-03T09:31:58.707+00:00

I agree that this (and similar issues with the WSL2 vms) must be resolved, and soon. This basic feature gap prevents everyone on my team from using Windows for the bulk of their developer work. I am tired of testing new workarounds to this problem that has hindered my work since the introduction of client hyper-v and more recently since the introduction of WSL2.

Many have proposed using a dummy nic or virtual switch to “claim” corporate private network ranges so that hyper-v will not use them. This is not a good workaround. It is cumbersome to users, and I find that it causes severe network performance degradation owing to routing problems.

Another alternative is to set up a router vm to handle traffic from an internal switch to an bridge adapter. This also is cumbersome.

A third choice would be to use a third party virtualization engine. Can’t do that either because new Windows 10 security features (credential guard) prevent VMware workstation from functioning.

After over 20 years of telling teammates, “No, you don’t need a Mac,” I have surrendered. On this team, for our development work, we now have to run Ubuntu or “get a Mac”. I hate this situation. Please correct this problem expeditiously!

Kimberly Tran 11 Reputation points

2022-04-12T21:00:02.087+00:00

So now it's' been several years. I don't understand why Microsoft hasn't fixed this problem. Is there some evil product team at Microsoft sitting around laughing at us poor users? At least give us the option of removing the default switch all together. Why is it going through such trouble to ensure that the default switch is not disabled?

I am of course on here ranting, because the default switch has chosen to squat on my VPN's address range. Startup roulette indeed.

Liam Baker 5 Reputation points

2023-04-11T04:02:41.4266667+00:00

Thanks Xiaowei, however I need a way to assign it to a range outside 172.16/12 because that is used for the corporate network. Most times Windows boots, it will use an address rang that conflicts with a route on the Ethernet interface. This can break connectivity within Windows or within WSL or both to various internal services.

Ethan-8192 16 Reputation points

2023-04-11T14:58:20.1433333+00:00

Amazed that this is still an issue; but it is. For anyone who stumbles across this from a search result, as of 2023 the stable workaround is a combination of the powershell script at statup to reassign the Hyper-V default switch IP and if you are a WSL2 user a KM-TEST Loopback Adapter that is on your needed VPN network range while WSL starts for the first time each boot. The loopback adapter can then be disabled before the VPN client is launched, and IP conflicts can be avoided, temporarily and this can also be done via a startup script invoked by the task scheduler. It's needlessly hacky but has worked for a while now. If it breaks the network driver probably didn't survive a windows upgrade and needs to be re-added manually since it's not a PNP device.
Sign in to comment

Change Hyper-V (Default Switch) IP address range

5 additional answers