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I have a Retina MacBook Pro with Mountain Lion and Boot Camp with Windows 7 and the Boot Camp 4.0 drivers. I'm also using the Thunderbolt to Ethernet adapter.

My problem is that my ethernet port (aka wired connection) is not available in Windows' Control Panel > Network & Internet > Network Connections. Only Bluetooth and Wireless are available. When I try to set up a connection, the only options are wireless and Broadband (PPPoE).

Do I need to download a specific driver to get ethernet working?

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I know this is an inconvenient suggestion, but I think the rMBP is more than capable of perfectly running windows in a VM, which would allow you to pass ethernet over (and have OS X take care of the drivers) – XAleXOwnZX Aug 28 '12 at 20:12

1 Answer

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The first problem might be that the adapter is not hot-pluggable, so be sure to connect it and reboot.

If you still have difficulties, I've found driver information while looking at the Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter page at Apple Store.

Google "broadcom driver windows netxtreme". Select the netxtreme I Desktop/Mobile driver. Install via device manager (select location where you unzipped driver). Note, the PCI ID for this device 14e4:1682 is not listed in Broadcom's web page list of supported IDs. However the driver's .inf does include the requisite matching for the new device ID.

Hopefully, you can solve this with a reboot due to it not working as a hot-plug device, and each time you need to boot Windows with the adapter attached for the driver to load.

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Didn't know it wasn't hot-plug - rebooting with the ethernet connected did the trick. Thanks. – Ryan Aug 28 '12 at 20:17
@ryan - Are you saying that you didn't need any additional drivers other than the normal BootCamp process? – bmike♦ Aug 28 '12 at 21:53
@bmike Yes, that's correct. I already installed the Boot Camp 4.0 drivers. I tried connecting the ethernet cable after booting and it didn't work. Rebooting with it connected solved the problem. – Ryan Aug 29 '12 at 1:28

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