Change MAC Address in Windows with Freeware Technetium Utility

Introduction

Do you know what the MAC Address is? If you don’t, and you never dealt with its concept, you probably can skip this article altogether. It will mostly be interesting for network administration and software programming specialists. I am neither one of this category. But I became interested in this utility, since I am responsible for registering and compiling the licenses for customers based on the computer generated IDs. Our software engineers coded the computer ID generation algorithm, based on several components, which should be unique for each computer, but should be stable enough not to cause the ID changes without serious hardware or software modifications. I started to receive the multiple notifications on the supposedly changed computer ID, so the software requests the license to be inputted again, even thou it was already unlocked earlier. When our software engineers reviewed the issue, they noticed that the problem is originated based on the MAC Address changes. That was quite unexpected since the MAC Address should be hard coded in the computer firmware. As response to the inquiry, I have sent the link to this software utility to them to prove, how easy it can be changed.

May be, you will find it useful and you’ll place this interesting utility in your software toolbox, as I did.

Concept

Many people believe MAC address, which is hard-coded in the NIC card cannot be changed. Yes, it’s hard coded and it can be changed only by removing the flash chip from the NIC card, re-programming it with new MAC address, and putting it back on the card. But this software does not change the hard coded MAC address. Technitium MAC Address Changer just instructs Windows to use a different MAC address that has been specified in the Windows registry. If no MAC address is specified to Windows, system uses the default hard-coded one in the NIC to construct Ethernet or IEEE network frames (or simply packets), which are used at OSI layer 2. Windows also changes MAC address of your NIC when Windows Network Bridge is enabled. The first number in the MAC address of the NIC added in the Network Bridge is set to 0x02. Changing MAC address of Network Bridge is not possible in Windows using this software, so this is a known software limitation.

How Does It Work?

This software just writes a value into the windows registry. When the Network Adapter Device is enabled, windows searches for the registry value 'NetworkAddress' in the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1- 08002bE10318}\[ID of NIC e.g. 0001]. If a value is present, windows will use it as MAC address, if not, windows will use the hard coded manufacturer provided MAC address. Note that some Network Adapter drivers have this facility as built-in. It can be found in the Advance settings tab in the Network Adapter's Device properties in Windows Device Manager.

Main Features

1. Support for Windows 2000 / XP / Server 2003 / Vista / 7. 
2. Allows you to remove all registry entries corresponding to Network Adapter that is no longer physically installed on the system. 
3. Allows you to configure Internet Explorer HTTP proxy settings through configuration presets or command line. 
4. Identifies the preset applied to currently selected Network Interface Card (NIC) automatically making it easy to identify settings. 
5. Changes MAC address of Network Interface Card (NIC) including Wireless LAN Cards, irrespective of its manufacturer or its drivers. 
6. Has latest list of all known manufacturers (with corporate addresses) to choose from. You can also enter any MAC address and know which manufacturer it belongs to. 
7. Allows you to select random MAC address from the list of manufacturers by just clicking a button. 
8. Restarts your NIC automatically to apply MAC address changes instantaneously. 
9. Allows you to create Configuration Presets, which saves all your NIC settings and makes it very simple to switch between many settings in just a click and hence saves lot of time. 
10. Allows you to Import or Export Configuration Presets to or from another file, which saves lot of time spent in reconfiguration. 
11. Allows you to load any Configuration Presets when TMAC starts by just double clicking on any Configuration Preset File. (*.cpf file extension) 
12. Has command line interface which allows you to perform all the tasks from the command prompt or you can even create a DOS batch program to carry out regular tasks. 
13. Has command line interface for the Installer. 
14. Allows you to export a detailed text report for all the network connections. 
15. Displays all information you would ever need to know about your NIC in one view like Device Name, Configuration ID, Hardware ID, Connection Status, Link Speed, DHCP details, TCP/IP details etc. 
16. Displays total bytes sent and received through the NIC. 
17. Displays current data transfer speed per second. 
18. Allows you to configure IP Address, Gateway and DNS Server for your NIC quickly and instantaneously. 
19. Allows you to enable/disable DHCP instantaneously. 
20. Allows you to Release/Renew DHCP IP address instantaneously. 
21. Displays DHCP lease obtained and lease expires time. (DST time bug removed) 
22. Allows you to configure Interface Metric instantaneously. 
23. Quick keyboard shortcuts for most operations. 
24. One known issue in Windows Vista/Server 2008/7 remains that is TMAC cannot disable any NIC with Non Operational status. 
25. The software is an absolute FREEWARE.

How to Change MAC Address

1. Starting MAC address changer will list all available network adapters.

2. Select the adapter you want to change the MAC address. You will get the details of your selection below.

3. Click Change MAC button, enter new MAC address and click Change Now button and confirm changes you made when prompted.

4. To restore the original MAC address of the network adapter, select the adapter, click Change MAC button and then click Original MAC button and confirm changes you made when prompted.

NOTE: This tool cannot change MAC address of Microsoft Network Bridge. Network Bridge will automatically use the original MAC address of the first NIC added into bridge with the first octet of MAC address set to 0x02.

Programmer: Shreyas Zare

Website and Downloading Link: http://www.technitium.com/tmac/index.html