Windows MAC Address Spoofing

I'd always wondered how to do this, I figured you needed a third party utility or something.  But tonight as I was randomly wondering how one would get an Xbox 360 connected to Xbox Live through a network running a captive portal, I happened upon the method.

No third-party software required.  There's just a simple setting you can change on your network card.  The setting is kind of buried, hence why I hadn't found it on my own.

Under normal circumstances, there's no reason you'd ever need to do this.  However, for very specific uses (like connecting an Xbox 360 to Xbox Live on hotel wireless or something), it can come in handy.  It can also force your broadband ISP to give you a new IP address.

1. Open your Control Panel and go into Network Connections.
2. Right click on your network connection and select Properties.
3. Near the top of the dialog that pops up you'll find a Configure button.  Click it.
4. On the Advanced tab of the dialog that comes up, look for an option like "Network Address".  It may differ depending on what network card you have, but it should either have the word "Address" or "MAC" in it.
5. Select that option.
6. In the Value text box, type in the new MAC address.  MAC addresses are in hexadecimal, so use the digits 0-9 and then A-F.  If you're trying to get a console onto hotel wireless (either with its own wireless adapter or bridged via a laptop or something), you'll want to enter your console's MAC address here.  It can typically be found in your console's network configuration.
   
   
   WARNING: You will lose network connectivity after this next step.  If all goes well it'll come back immediately, but make sure you're not using the internet for anything important because it'll get interrupted.
   
   
7. Click OK.

Now if you open up a command prompt (Start->Run, type cmd, press Enter) and type ipconfig /all, you should see the MAC address you configured.

There you go.  Don't try to hold me responsible for the repercussions of anything you do with this knowledge, because if you do I'll just laugh at you and then condescendingly dismiss you.