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If I have Windows 10 as well as Ubuntu installed on my laptop, will the MAC address of the wi-fi network card going to be the same or it will be different in Windows and in Ubuntu?

If it is the same, can I somehow change the MAC address in Windows or Ubuntu, so that eventually I will have a different MAC address in both operating systems?

JAN ORTS
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    Does this answer your question? How do I change / spoof my MAC address and easily switch between multiple ones? – graham Mar 11 '20 at 15:36
  • can I somehow change the MAC address in Windows or Ubuntu, so that eventually I will have a different MAC address in both operating systems? That's a different issue, and belongs in its own question. Questions should be resonably scoped as per https://askubuntu.com/help/dont-ask – K7AAY Mar 11 '20 at 15:37
  • @Graham has it right. However, the $64,000 question is... why do you want/need to do this? – heynnema Mar 11 '20 at 17:51
  • I wanted to have 2 different MAC addresses - one in Windows and one in Ubuntu, so that I can try to connect to a specific Wi-fi network from Windows and Ubuntu and to find out what my problem is. I have been doing this for many years. If I had some problem connected to Computer networks, websites etc... in Windows I tried to shut down Windows and boot into Ubuntu and it often helped me to solve my problem. – JAN ORTS Mar 11 '20 at 18:02

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You can change the MAC address using macchanger:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AnonymizingNetworkMACAddresses

IIRC it will revert back to its original value at boot. So if you dual-boot between Microsoft Windows and GNU/Linux, then you could simply change the MAC address to another MAC address every time you boot GNU/Linux.

This way you system will have MAC address A when running Microsoft Windows and MAC address B when running GNU/Linux.

Ole Tange
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Will the MAC address of the wi-fi network card going to be the same or it will be different in Windows and in Ubuntu?

Yes. The MAC address is encoded in the hardware of the WiFi network adapter.

K7AAY
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The MAC address is burned-in to the physical device by the factory. So regardless of what OS you are running on your PC you still have the one MAC Address. To have different MAC Addresses you should have different network cards. For example if your PC have Ethernet Port and WiFi Card then you have two addresses.

And changing your MAC address? The short answer is NO, you can't.

I haven't tried this but a quick search on the internet renders results like the following here. But note that it doesn't mean that you are changing your MAC address rather you are making it appear as if you have a different MAC address, that is just Virtual. If a device is communicating with your machine on the Datalink layer, it will still be able to see your original MAC address.

Michael
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  • But, I have been changing my MAC address for many years (from 2005 to 2014) using different software. However, back then it was on Windows XP and Windows 7, not on Windows 10. – JAN ORTS Mar 11 '20 at 16:02
  • You can change mac address on Windows and Ubuntu. You don't physically change it in the device ROM, but in network settings. – Pilot6 Mar 12 '20 at 09:01