Confirm Physical Port MAC Addresses and Match Them to Windows Device Names

To confirm the MAC addresses of installed network interface ports and to match them to the Windows Device Friendly Names, you need to open a command prompt and run ipconfig /all, as described below:

1. Click -> Start -> Run.

   The Run dialog box appears.

2. In the Run dialog box, type cmd then click OK.

   The cmd.exe DOS window appears.

3. In the cmd.exe DOS window, enter the following command at the prompt: ipconfig /all

   The output from the ipconfig /all command identifies the installed network interface ports by the connection name in the order of enumeration.

   The output does not necessarily follow an alpha or numeric order. You can customize the connection name in the Network Connections folder. For details, see Microsoft's documentation. The output below illustrates how the Windows operating system, by default, assigns logical names to network interfaces.

   
   
   

   Callout Description 1 Second Ethernet adapter port. 2 First Ethernet adapter port.

   In the sample output:

   • Ethernet Adapter Local Area Connection is the Windows default logical name (friendly name) assigned to a network interface.

     Note that the first Ethernet Adaptor Local Area Connection appears with a null value. This entry identifies the connection-specific DNS suffix (for example, east.sun.com) and the physical MAC address for that port.

   • Ethernet Adapter Local Area Connection 2 identifies a disconnected media state, a description, and the physical MAC address for that port.

   • The numeric value following the Windows logical friendly name refers to the network connection number.