Medium Access Control or MAC address is used for Ethernet cards to identify in a network. MAC is also called an Ethernet address. Ethernet adaptors have 12 hexadecimal values to uniquely identify devices in the world. Every Ethernet card or adaptor has a unique address in the LAN. Following instructions to find the Mac address can be applied in all modern Windows operating systems like Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10, and Windows Server versions.
What Is MAC Address?
Media Access Control or MAC is a protocol designed for communication in a Local Area Network or LAN. MAC protocol provides rules and standards for LAN communication. According to the MAC protocol, every device should have a unique address called MAC Address for communication and address. MAC address is related to the network adaptor which can be an ethernet card, wireless card, etc. It is embedded in the network adaptor by the vendor. In order to prevent confessions, the MAC address should be unique in the world. In order to make it unique, every network adaptor has a MAC address range only dedicated to them and used by them. Mac address consists of 12 hexadecimal values and these values are grouped as 2 hexadecimal values. For more readability, the double colon is used as a delimiter. Below you can see an example MAC address.
aa:bb:cc:dd:11:22Find MAC Address From MS-DOS Command Line
You can find the MAC address from the command line easily by using the ipconfig command. First, you should open the command line or MS-DOS. These instructions can be also implemented for the new generation command-line PowerShell. Also, we can call this “dos mac address” as we use the MS-DOS command line interface.
Type command prompt into the Start menu which will list the command prompt. You can click on the Open or Run as administrator .
In the command line, we will type the “ipconfig /all” command. This command is used to list detailed network-related information about the system. It will provide information like Host Name, DNS, DHCP, IP Address, Default Gateway, etc. The MAC address is also called the physical address and is provided in the line Physical Address .
> ipconfig /all
The ipconfig command creates lots of output which makes finding the MAC addresses difficult. The find command can be used to filter and display only the MAC Address which is named as Physical Address like below.
> ipconfig /all | find "Physical Address"Find MAC Address with getmac Command
As MAC address is regularly used by administrators and super users Windows operating systems provide the getmac command which can be executed in the command line and only the MAC address will be displayed. All mac addresses of the network interfaces will be displayed under the Physical Address and Transport Name columns.
> getmacThe output is like below.
Physical Address Transport Name
============ ===== ===============================
00-0C-29-03-60-BF \Device\Tcpip_{DBCE3A34-2AD2-4B7C-885A-2682DD89E1C8}
Find MAC Address From Network Connection Settings
The MAC address of a Windows system can be also displayed via a graphical user environment or desktop. There are different tools that will display the MAC address of the network adaptor. First, click on the network icon on the right-left bottom corner which is located inside the taskbar.
Then the network adaptors will be listed. for this case, there is only one network adaptor which is an ethernet card. Right-click on this network adaptor.
Scroll down to the following screen where the detailed network-related information will be listed below. The physical address (MAC) line provides the MAC address of the selected network or ethernet adaptor.
Find Mac Address with PowerShell Get-NetAdapter Command
The PowerShell command-line interface provides the Get-NetAdapter command or cmdlet in order to provide detailed information about the network. By default, it also prints the network adaptors and their mac addresses. This command can be used for Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows with related Windows Server versions.
PS> Get-NetAdapter
From the Get-NetAdaptor command output, we can see that the MAC address is displayed in the MacAddress column.
Find Mac Address Using System Information
The System Information is a GUI tool that provides detailed and under-the-hood information about the system. The System Information can be used to get the MAC address of the network adaptor. Start Menu-> type “System Information” to open it.
From the System Information screen navigate to Components -> Network -> Adapter. Then scroll down to the MAC Address line which will display the current network adaptors MAC address. But keep in mind that this Adapter screen will display all the system network adapters on a single page where all information is provided throughout down. Be sure that you are looking for the right adaptor information.
Alternatively, the Find what text box can be used to search the MAC Address.
Get All Active Directory Computers MAC Addresses
Enterprises use Active Directory to manage Windows computers in a central way. Sometimes we may need to get all these computers’ MAC Addresses via the Active Directory without logging them one by one. The following script can be used for get Mac Addresses via AD.
$ADComputers = (Get-ADComputer -Filter {enabled -eq $true} -Property Name).Name
$result = ForEach ($Computer in $ADComputers){
If (Test-Connection -Quiet -Count 1 -Computer $Computer){
[PSCustomPbject]@{
ComputerName = $Computer
MAC = (Invoke-Command {
(Get-WmiObject Win32_NetworkAdapterConfiguration -Filter 'ipenabled = "true"').MACAddress -Join ', '
} -ComputerName $Computer)
Online = $True
DateTime = [DateTime]::Now
}
} Else {
[PSCustomPbject]@{
ComputerName = $Computer
MAC = ''
Online = $False
DateTime = [DateTime]::Now
}
}
}
$result | Export-Csv C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop\ComputersMacAddress.csv -Delimiter ";" -NoTypeInformation