Install the MS Loopback adapter on windows 2008

Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Add Hardware
Next -> Install the hardware I manually select from a list (Advanced) -> Network Adapters -> Microsoft on the left, Microsoft Loopback Adapter on the right -> Next -> Next -> Finish

In Windows 2008 however we have a whole new way of controlling networking, and I must admit it looks like Microsoft finally have a sensible way of controlling network interfaces.

Weak and Strong Host Behaviour in Windows
“Windows XP and Windows Server® 2003 use the weak host model for sends and receives for all IPv4 interfaces and the strong host model for sends and receives for all IPv6 interfaces. You cannot configure this behaviour. The Next Generation TCP/IP stack in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 supports strong host sends and receives for both IPv4 and IPv6 by default.”

You still need to configure the loopback adapter with the VIP (but you don’t need to set the metric)
You still need to disable the firewall (or enable traffic to and from the loopback)

Then you need to use the following command line magic :

netsh interface ipv4 set interface "net" weakhostreceive=enabled
netsh interface ipv4 set interface "loopback" weakhostreceive=enabled
netsh interface ipv4 set interface "loopback" weakhostsend=enabled