Shared NIC Issue

While running some unit tests in our W2K3 VM configured with 2GB of RAM on a W2K3 HOST with 3Gb of RAM and a single ethernet adapter we noticed that if the VM accessed the HOST machine (sharing the same adapter) the machine connectivity was completely wiped out and the entire machine must be rebooted….and I tested this twice.

 

The unit test executed inside the VM and called some Web Service Methods on the HOST machines IIS 6.0 server across the same adapter causes the adapter to fail until the machine is rebooted, I would imagine this would not occur if I had a separate adapter for the VM.