Changing the MAC address of a virtual machine

A MAC address is a 48-bit address that is used for communication between two hosts in an Ethernet environment. The address is written in the form of 12 hexadecimal digits, with the first six hexadecimal characters representing the vendor. That is why VM’s addresses usually start with 00:50:56 or 00:0C:29 – these identifiers are assigned to VMware.

Player automatically assigns each of its virtual network adapters an Ethernet MAC address. You can use the Advanced settings under the virtual network adapter menu to change the adapter’s MAC address.

Here are the steps to change to assign a new MAC address to the network adapter:

1. Make sure that the VM is not in the suspended state. The VM can either be powered on or powered off.

2. Go to Player > Manage Virtual Machine Settings. Select the network adapter for which you want to change the MAC address and click the Advanced button.

3. Click on the Generate button to let Player determine the new MAC address of enter the address manually:

4. Power off the VM and then power it back on. You can verify that the MAC address has indeed been changed by running the ipconfig/all command:

C:\Users>ipconfig/all
...
Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) PRO/1000 MT Network Connection
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : AA-BB-CC-11-22-33
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::3105:21ee:e3d0:d5de%11(Preferred)
IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.5.105(Preferred)
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Wednesday, September 06, 2017 9:52:24 PM
Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : Thursday, September 07, 2017 9:52:23 PM
...