Every device attached to an Ethernet and Wireless network has a MAC (Media Access Control) addresses. The MAC (Media access control) address is also known as the physical address, and is, in effect, the address of the network adapter.

Each network adapter (wireless, Ethernet, PCI or USB) is assigned a unique 48 bit address (MAC/ physical address) at the time of manufacture which you cannot change.

Finding the MAC Address

To find the MAC address on a Windows 2000, XP machines open a command line by selecting start>run and enter cmd into the box and click OK:

At the command prompt type : Ipconfig /all and you will see the IP details displayed. In the screen shot below the computer is equipped with and Ethernet adapter and a Wireless adapter. The details of both adapters are displayed.

The MAC address is called the Physical address in the screenshots below and is a 48 bit number displayed in Hexadecimal.

For our Ethernet adapter above the MAC address is 00-C0-9F-56-63-B2 and

For our wireless adapter above the MAC address is 00-40-F4-D6-51-90.

MAC Addresses and IP Addresses

Many network newcomers get confused as to the difference between a MAC address and an IP address.

Mac addresses are fixed, assigned by the adapter manufacturer, and cannot be changed. IP addresses are assigned by the system administrator or automatically (using DHCP) and are also called logical addresses, and they can be changed. (see computer Network addresses for more details).

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