To resolve this issue, make the ghosted network adapter visible in the Device Manager and uninstall the ghosted network adapter from the registry:
Click Start > Run.
Type cmd.exe, and click Enter.
At the command prompt, run this command:
set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1
Note: If this command does not work (a possibility in Windows Server 2000 and 2003), you may need to add the parameter to Windows and set its value:
Right-click the My Computer desktop icon and choose Properties.
Click the Advanced tab and select Environment Variables.
In the System variables section, click New.
Set the Variable name to devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices and set the Variable value to 1 to enable the parameter.
Click OK to add the variable to Windows.
Start the device manager by running the following command from the same command prompt:
start devmgmt.msc
Select View > Show Hidden Devices.
Expand the Network Adapters tree (select the plus sign next to the Network adapters entry).
Right-click the dimmed network adapter, and then click Uninstall.
Once all of the grayed out NICs are uninstalled, assign the IP address to the virtual NIC.
Close Device Manager.
For more information, see the Microsoft Knowledge Base article 241257.
Note: The preceding link was correct as of February 7th, 2012. If you find the link is broken, provide feedback and a VMware employee will update the link.