The Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 SP1 Virtual Machines on my laptop are connecting just fine to my physical network adapter (wifi) via the External Virtual Switch that I setup in Hyper-V (Windows 8 Pro host). I can connect to the internet to do Windows updates on those VM’s.

Now I have installed Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard x64 Edition with SP2 on a new VM. I set up the Network Adapter to use the same virtual switch (“External WiFi”) that I’ve been using for my VM’s. But this time, my Windows Server 2003 VM cannot connect to the network or the internet.

According to the many sources  I found online, I need to add a Legacy Network Adapter to the Windows Server 2003 VM. Hint: You need a little more than that.

These two posts were really helpful in setting up the legacy network adapter:

• Hyper-V – how to install legacy network driver for Windows Server 2003 virtual machine
• Windows XP x64 in Hyper-V – Network Drivers

Go ahead and read those. But I have summarized the steps below:

Adding the Legacy Network Adapter Device to the VM

Add a Legacy Network Adapter Hardware to the Windows Server 2003 VM via Hyper-V Manager (Hyper-V Manager > {MyVMhere} > Setting)

Then connect that to the Virtual Switch:

Installing the Adapter to the VM

We need to copy some NIC driver files from an existing x64 machine — files from Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 Sp1 worked just fine:

1. Create a floppy disk from the Hyper-V Manager. Mount that to an existing VM. Here’s how to create and use a Virtual Floppy Disk.

2. On the existing VM, copy the files from %windir%\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\dc21x4vm.inf_amd64_aaa5f1eb8c006024 into the floppy disk. Then, dismount/unmount the floppy disk.

3. Mount the same floppy disk to the Windows Server 2003 x64 VM.

4. Then install the Legacy Network Adapter to the Windows Server 2003 x64 VM.

You should now be able to do your Windows Server 2003 x64 Updates.

I hope that saves you some time.