Windows 10 includes the ability to edit the physical address (MAC) for your network adapters. Find out how to do it and why you would want to.
As we’ve explained in our article on how to find your MAC address, a MAC address serves as a permanent, physical identifier for any device that connects to a network. That includes your phone, your router, your computer, your printer, your Apple TV, anything that connects to your internet. If your computer has an Ethernet port and a WiFi adapter, you have two MAC addresses: one for Ethernet and one for wireless.
MAC addresses are useful for identifying devices on a network. For home users, you might use MAC filtering to restrict access to your WiFi network. The reason that a MAC address works better for these administrative tasks is that, unlike IP addresses, the MAC address doesn’t change.
Or at least it’s not supposed to.
The MAC address is “burned-in” to the physical device at the factory. But it’s fairly simple to change your MAC address by “spoofing” it as another MAC address.
Why would you want to do this?
Since versions 2.2.x you can use MacMakeup from the command line. You can automate tasks like having a new MAC at each boot, or switch from one MAC to the other in a click or following events. For example the Windows scheduler allows you to execute script based on a lot of events.
Change Mac Address For Teamviewer
MAC spoofing can be used maliciously to circumvent network controls, but it’s really only effective for blacklists—that is if someone specifically blocked your device from the network. For whitelists, you’d have to know the MAC address of a specific device you’re trying to spoof.
Changing your MAC address has legitimate uses as well. You can use it to test your own MAC filtering settings. Or you can use it to assign specific rules to a set of devices within a certain MAC address range.
- Jan 06, 2020 Using the Device Manager Open the Device Manager. Expand the Network Adapters section. Right-click on your adapter. Click the Advanced tab. Enter your new MAC address. Reboot your computer to enable the changes. Check that the changes took effect.
- Change Windows MAC Address. You can change the MAC address for the network card in Windows pretty easily following the steps below. Step 1: Click on Start, then Control Panel, then Network Connections, and right-click on the network connection you want to change the MAC address for and select Properties.
At any rate, the fact that you’ve read this far means you probably have a vested interest in changing your MAC address. So, without further ado, here’s how to do it.
Edit Your Network Adapters MAC Address to Bypass Network Restrictions in Windows 10
Press Windows key + X on your keyboard then click Device Manager. Expand Network adapters, right-click your Ethernet or Wireless adapter then click Properties.
Select the Advanced tab. Within the Property box, scroll down then select Locally Administered Address then select the Value radio box; there you will see your adapters MAC address. To edit the address, click in the value box then clear its contents then enter a new address. A Mac address consists of six pairs of hexadecimal digits. Enter a new set without the hyphens, click OK then restart your computer.
Did it work? Let’s find out.
To confirm the change, open Start, type: CMD, right-click CMD then click Run as administrator.
At the command prompt, type: ipconfig/all then hit Enter to check the physical address.
Change Wireless Mac Address Windows 10
You can also open Start > Settings > Network & Internet, click the connection name then scroll down to view the Physical address (MAC).
It doesn’t get any easier than that. Drop a line in the comments and let us know what you think.