I have a set of 1G Ethernet USB adapters. To keep them organized, I wanted to label them with MAC address so I could easily identify the correct interface when more than one was connected.
I plugged three of them into a Linux machine, and got three similar addresses:
20:23:51:92:5b:64
20:23:51:92:62:15
20:23:51:92:6c:ce
One was already plugged into a Windows system, so I did IPCONFIG /ALL and looked at the hardware (Physical) address:
E4-B9-7A-C9-7A-6D
I looked up 20:23:51 at https://macaddress.io, and it was correctly identify as TP-Link.
I looked up E4:B9:7A and the OUI is registered to Dell. The Windows system is Dell, but the USB adapter is the same TP-Link as the others above.
Out of curiosity, I moved the adapter to the Linux system and ip a told me the link/ether address for the adapter is 20:23:51:92:5b:66 which is consistent with the other adapters.
I thought maybe Windows was configured for Random MAC, but E4 is not a local address. There was no an override MAC address in the adapter settings either.
Why would Windows 11 present the physical address differently?
