Docking stations are great, they provide so much support especially for someone that wants to expand their working capabilities. You just connect your laptop to the docking station and it powers your bigger setup and allows you to be more productive.
I use SCCM at work to image new computers and deploy them to network. We use tablets for some of the users that work remotely as well. For these users, a docking station is provided to expand their workstation. I use a docking station to image new computers and deploy them to our network.
The problem lies when I try to image more than one computer using the same docking station. SCCM server registers the docking station’s MAC Address and associates that to the name given to the tablet that is imaged using the docking station. So, we cannot reuse the same docking station to reimage another computer, unless we exclude the Dock’s MAC Address from the SCCM server.
Now, if we connect it to the network, it registers and associates the computer’s name with the docking station’s MAC address.
The question now is how do we get the MAC address of the docking station, without connecting it to the network. And it is quite simple than it sounds.
Find The MAC Address Of The Docking Station
To do this you will need another device that has a LAN port and a LAN cable (obviously).
1. Power up the other machine
2. Connect that docking station to the machine using the LAN cable and power (If required)
3. Go to “Start” and type in CMD. Alternatively, hit the “Windows” + “R” key on your keyboard and type in CMD and hit “Enter”
4. ype in “ipconfig /all”
5. Look for the ethernet adapter that sounds or looks like the one from your docking station
6. If nothing listed looks like MAC Address of your docking station, make sure there are lights blinking on the LAN ports and try again
Hope this was helpful for anyone that needed to get the MAC Address of a docking station or a device without connecting it to the real network.
