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MAC Address Translation

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by jabulani

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Is there a utility to translate MAC addresses to NetBIOS names. I am trtying to resolve IP address conflicts and the same MAC address has showed up a couple of times.

9 replies

by jabulani

It seem to be what I need but it doesn't work. I only get Resource name and Comments displayed. For NetBIOS Name, IP Address and MAC Address I get question marks displayed.

by william jay

Having two nics in a net with the same MAC will mess with dhcp, wins, and other services.

For an always available solution, (or to run in a batch file), get the netbios status:

nbtstat -a

The MAC address is reported along with the machine name, username, worgroupname, etc ... parts of MS windows networking. There is no 'translation' for MAC however, only reporting. The MAC address used to be hard-coded into each nic, but some of the newer ones allow us to specify one. Occasionally one needs to use the dos utilities that come with the nic to effect a lasting change.

Now, one can use "ping -a ip.add.ress.xyz", which returns the dns name and timings, but it will be affected by the settings in the machineit is run from. For instance, the presence of old or out of sync hosts or lmhosts files. And those two files on the dhcp/dns server(s) may need to be looked at too ...

by saihib

There is no way to translate a MAC addresses to NetBIOS names. MAC addresses are hardcoded into each NIC at the factory and are unique to each card(static). NetBIOS names can change at an Administrators whim. You can, however, use the utility WINIPCFG/More Info/Ethernet Adapter Information (Drop down box to your adapter)/ Adapter Address to see the NetBIOS name associated with that MAC address.

by buffalodan

ARP.exe is included with the tcp/ip suite of utilities in windows, when tcp/ip is installed arp is automatically included.

ARP is the "address resolution protocol", it is used by windows and netbios to associate an ip address with a physical "mac" address.
and when netbios has resolved a machine name, it will maintain a table on your machine of the associations made thus far.
the table can be read by typing "arp-a" at the command prompt, this will display the resolved ip addresses and their associated "mac" address.
you can also type "arp eth_addr", this will poll that mac address and create an entry in your table of that mac addresses ip address.
you will then need to run arp-a again to view the new table entry.

there is no needto purchase or download any utilities, windows includes the utilities needed to troubleshoot tcp/ip conflicts.

by jabulani

ARP -a only display IP Address and MAC Address. What I am looking for is an assotiation with the Computer name as well.

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