Changing the MAC Address of a VMWare Virtual Machine

If you use VMWare Virtual Machines, you may have created a repository of template VMs that you use as a baseline for any other virtual machines that you create.

Of course, one of the problems with copying over existing virtual machines is that they retain the same MAC address as when the VM was first created!

As you can guess, this causes problems on your network if you have multiple VMs that are all providing the same MAC address to your network switches and routers.  This is also particularly problematic if you are assigning static IP addresses on your LAN based on unique MAC Addresses.

In the past, you would use a tool such as VMWare MAC Changer to accomplish this: http://merlinsoftware.com/free.htm

However, this tool is extremely outdated and is no longer necessary.

Instead, you can readily change the MAC address of any of your VMWare Virtual Machine Network Adapters by doing the following:

1. Click on the VM Settings
2. Select your Network Adapter
3. Click on the Advanced button
4. Notice that you can view the MAC Address of your Network Adapter
5. Click on the Generate button to generate a new MAC Address.  Alternatively, you can also manually type in your desired MAC Address.
6. Click on OK to save your changes
7. Make sure you restart your VM to ensure that the new MAC Address is recognized by Windows.
8. Your new MAC Address should now reflect in your VM!
9. If for some reason the new MAC Address is not reflected, you can run the getmac command at the command prompt.  

For some more articles on changing the MAC Address in VMWare Virtual Machines, you can check out these articles:

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1008473

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=507