First, a little theory. MAC address is the static name of the network device assigned by the manufacturer. Full abbreviation - media access control. Absolutely all ethernet-based devices have it, and, consequently, your network adapter.
In the standard OSI model, the physical address acts as the channel identifier of the device. It is used by all high-level protocols, such as IP versions 4 and 6. The physical addresses of network devices, and this is how the MAC can be determined, are distributed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), an international non-profit organization. Converting to and from an IP address is done using ARP and Reverse ARP. This MAC address consists of 48 bits, divided into 6 octets (8 bits each).
TCP / IP networks use MAC-48 device designation variations. So the question of how to find out the MAC address arises from time to time among novice system administrators and advanced users. This is due to the widespread use of this standard in data networks.
So, if you have a question about how to find out the MAC address, then we hasten to please you - it is extremely simple. You just need to open the Windows console and type a command that is universal for all systems, starting with XP. The console can be found in the Run menu, which is located in the Start menu. Type cmd in the window that opens and click OK. A window will appear with a black background where the white cursor will blink. Now you need to type ipconfig / all and the system will give you all the configuration information, including the MAC address in the hexadecimal value system, which is located in the "Physical address" field. In accordance with international standards, the first three octets are set by the vendor (manufacturer) of the device.
Sometimes, for educational or practical purposes, you need to not only determine how to find out the MAC address. For example, it’s a very typical situation when you have a pop-up connection in your network provider to access the Internet, and you brought in a new device and you need to urgently connect it, which is problematic, because the technical support employee is not in place, say, because of the holidays.
In the absence of a router, except by changing the address on the new device to the old MAC address, this problem cannot be solved. From the previous part of the article, you received information on how to find out the MAC address of a computer.
Further, many mistakenly believe that the physical address of the device and IP are one and the same, and changing the second one does not cost anything, however, it is a little more complicated than just changing the IP. It should be noted that the information below is provided for informational purposes only. Remember that if you assign someone else's MAC address, then this is qualified in accordance with Articles 272 / 272.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation!
However, it will be useful for you to find out how to change the MAC address. To do this, go to "Device Manager" and select your network device. Most often it will be a network card. Depending on the driver version, the name of the menu items may differ. In general, select the Advanced tab and find the Network Adress item. Now set the format to the appropriate value.
But, perhaps, you will not find such settings in the properties of your adapter or need a more convenient tool. Then you should use a specialized utility to change the MAC address - Macshift. The manufacturer claims to work only on XP systems. You can use the utility using the command line (how to do this, it was already mentioned above). The -i option allows you to specify the name of the network adapter (which should be taken from the network device manager), after a space, you must specify the desired address, which should consist of 12 digits of the decimal alphabet. You can also use the random (-r) switch, changing the value to an arbitrary one. By the way, this option is installed by default. You can restore the original device address using the -d switch.
There is another popular program for changing the MAC address - SMAC. Its capabilities are much wider. Support for operating systems - from Windows 2000 to the "seven", you can select up to 10 recently used addresses, the support list includes almost all manufacturers of network cards. The program also provides network card logs and other important information, so the problem of how to find out the MAC address without using the command line and hidden menus is not for the user of this utility.