Physical address of ethernet adapter changed automatically

Question

_{Sunday, May 27, 2018 11:56 AM}

On my Lenovo Laptop with Windows 10, physical address of ethernet adapter changed automatically yesterday morning. 

On previous day, i was able to use my softwares which are licensed using MAC address and Composite ID. But suddenly it stopped working giving licence error yesterday. After investigation, I found that both are changed. 

Even if i haven't made any changes in hardware, how did they got changed? I have few questions about this as follows:

1. Can I get any log mentioning when and how MAC address changed? 

2. Can I restore it to the original one? (I don't have restore point created)

3. On the same day, I found that my windows 10 was trying to update to version 1803. Is it the reason for the mess? It also causing issue in fingerprint sign-in option since then.

Please help me to solve this.

Thanks in advance!

All replies (1)

_{Monday, May 28, 2018 1:40 AM | 1 vote}

Generally speaking, if there is not others touch your laptop, physical(MAC) address will not be changed, maybe you installed some third-party software recently? Check it.

In Windows 10, we do can change MAC address from Device Manager.

Open Device Manager dialog find out your Network Adaptors.

Select the network adaptor whose MAC address you wish to change

Right click on the network adaptor and select Properties, Advanced tab

In the list of available options, select Locally Administered MAC Address or Network Address; note that only one of the two options will appear based on the type of your network adaptor

When you select one of the above options, you will get a text box saying Value.

Explicitly setting it to a known working one may solve the problem.

No log records the MAC address change behavior.

Install 1803 will not influence your hardware.

Regards

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