Routers & MAC Addresses

[Patrick Whittle]

I have three computers (four actually; I will explain) accessing a router

for Internet access. I found out where to go, in order to modify the MAC

address for the forth computer. This computer (host actually, rather than

physical computer) boots from my second choice on the OS boot menu; it

doesn't have a NIC installed. I decided to use a Linksys wireless USB

adapter to connect to the router. Connectivity worked just fine in the

beginning, but a couple months later, it failed.



Then I found a way to edit a key in the registry so that MAC addresses

(created through cloning) can be used by any NIC you want. I edited the key

below :





[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318]



HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

\SYSTEM

\CurrentControlSet

\Control

\Class

\{4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}





That worked fine in the begging, but what the router's DHCP ended up

recording was very asymmetric. It recorded the MAC address of the fourth

computer as being:



524153200080C6FE884D000000000000



When the MAC address is really: 52-41-53-20-00-80



You can see that the MAC address was actually recorded, but with out

delimiting (-) characters. The actual key structure though, is standard &

documented. It is the place where all NIC producers store their MACs. Why

isn't my router recording my wireless MAC address properly?

 

[Peter Foldes]

One place you did not post but posted just about everywhere is the newsgroup that
this issue belongs to.

news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.windowsxp.network_web