Cannot create virtual switch Hyper-V (0x80070002)

Question

I get following error while creating any type(external, internal and private) of virtual switch on Hyper-V using Hyper-V manager.

Failed to create virtual ethernet switch.

The system cannot find the file specified. (0x80070002)

Here is a to screenshot of error:

OS: Windows 8.1 (x64) + Update 1

Getting the same error when trying to create from Powershell.

Answer 1

1. Go to Settings -> Network & Internet

2. Select Change adapter options

3. Right click on NIC Adapter -> Properties

4. Check if the Hyper-V Extensible Virtual Switch is installed in your NIC's Properties

   • If it is installed, uninstall it.

5. Reinstall the Hyper-V Extensible Virtual Switch

   5.1 Select Install

   5.2 Select Protocol

   5.3 Select Hyper-V Extensible Virtual Switch

6. Create the virtual switch on Hyper-V using the Hyper-V manager

Source: https://www.tenforums.com/virtualization/10699-hyper-v-error-when-creating-virtual-switch.html#post306179

Answer 2

All resolutions suggested failed!

This did work immediately and I have had no issues since. Here is how you do it:

Open the following registry key and give "All Applications" full control permissions

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WcmSvc

That was it, no more issues after that.

Answer 3

All I did was delete the NICs from device manager one at a time (was logged in remotely). After deleting, right click and click Scan for hardware changes.

Windows re-found the deleted NIC and installed it, then Hyper-V manager was able to create a V-Switch.

For the Intel NICs, I did need the latest driver from Lenovo's site. I did not have to uninstall and reinstall the Hyper-V role; maybe because I had already tried the remove role → reboot → netcfg -d (PowerShell) → reboot again. (I had to use LogMeIn scheduled restart as I was working remotely)

Answer 4

I had this issue for a while. I tried a lot of different "solutions" for me the only thing that actually worked is to run these two PowerShell commands.  First

Get-NetAdapter  

This will just list all the network adapters on your machine. We need the name column for the actual command we want to run.

New-VMSwitch -name ExternalSwitch  -NetAdapterName Ethernet -AllowManagementOS $true

• -name is how the adapter appears in Hyper-V.
• -NetAdapterName is the name from the previous command.
• -AllowManagementOS is $true for the host and VM to both have internet.  This is a checkbox in the Hyper-V graphical interface.

I did try many things first to no avail. Resetting network settings, reimaging, netsh commands that I assumed were discontinued by now. Removing and re-adding the Windows features. I can't say this alone fixed my issue. However, the above is what seems to work for me. Trying the others all still result in the error message even now. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/virtualization/hyper-v/get-started/create-a-virtual-switch-for-hyper-v-virtual-machines This has a bit more info if anyone is interested.