IPCONFIG.EXE

No.

It gets its info from the Registry, although the name of the wireless card isn't included in its output, at least here on my systems.

On my XP Pro SP3 system, ipconfig /all shows the name of the wireless and wired network adapters, for example:

Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) PRO/100 VE Network Connection

Oh, is that what he meant? On my XP Pro SP3 system, they are described as NVIDIA Network Controller and NVIDIA Network Controller #2. Not very descriptive.

Bert Hyman wrote in news:Xns9E0E95400FED1VeebleFetzer@216.250.188.141:

Yes, it shows the name of my adapter also. There are about 50 entries in the XP registry with the same name of the adapter, but I have no idea which registry entry ipconfig reads, IF that is where it is coming from instead of a query to the device itself.

Well, that's my guess.

Not very nice of Nvidia :-)

At least in my case, there's enough info that I could figure out what drivers I needed if I just found the machine somewhere.

That was my laptop; my "real" machine says

Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Attansic L1 Gigabit Ethernet

10/100/1000Base-T Controller

Again, I think I could probably find drivers with that much info.

No. IPCONFIG stays on your computer and does not go wandering away.

Look under: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\NetworkCards\ for the driver ID number. That's the mess between the { }. The real description is buried under something like:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Class\{4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002bE10318}\0015\DriverDesc\

Jeff Liebermann wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

With all respect, in my xp registry there are many entries in the registry showing the exact same description of the same adapter. The registry entry in your reply is for the driver description which I think is a different string showing the version number of the driver. How do you know which of the many identical adapter descriptions, containing the same name of the device, is the one being read by ipconfig.exe? Also in my registry there are numerous control sets (ControlSet

008,0010,0014, etc) which correspond to the various access points I have connected to with the same adapter, all showing the identical adapter name and chipset description. Are you saying ipconfig just picks one at random. Seems to me the only accurate way is to query the adapter directly, not to read the registry.

Aw, c'mon. That had hardly any respect whatsoever.

You can do better than that...

TBerk

Just run regmon, put ipconfig in the watch filter, and run your ipconfig command.

[]'s

I'm not sure which is the correct description used by IPCONFIG. I tried changing the description to see if IPCONFIG would pick up the change. Nope. However, I didn't bother trying to start/stop the IP stack or reboot.

I thought it was the one I listed, but might be wrong.

It's not random and they're not identical unless you've been moving your USB wireless device to different USB ports, each of which will have a seperate entry. The list under: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\NetworkCards\ should be the physical devices which you have had attached to your computah (past and present), one of which is your current wireless card.

I'm on a different XP machine right now, with both a wireless PCI card, and an ethernet card connected to the same router. The above key shows 5 devices, which correspond to various network devices that I've had installed in my computah. Listed are: Linksys Wireless-G PCI Adapter (currently installed) Linksys Wireless-G PCI Adapter (not installed) Windoze-Mobile based device (my Verizon XV-6700 cell phone) Intel(R) 82567LM-3 Gigabit Network Connection (curently installed) Intel(R) 82566DM-2 Gigabit Network Connection (Pro100 card removed) I swapped out the Linksys WMP54G card when the original proved defective. The 2nd Pro100 card was an experiment in creative networking from long ago. If you check your list of devices, you'll probably find a similar history of what was previously installed in your machine.

You can see the list of previous network devices by running the Device Manager and selecting: View -> Show Hidden Devices Under "Network Adapters", you should find the entire list of adapters, both past and present. If you want even more: Start -> run -> cmd set DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES=1 start devmgmt.msc View -> Show Hidden Devices If your list is huge, this would probably be a good time to delete ancient history and unused devices. (Backup your registry first).

Regmon, running with no filters, (agghh), shows me the only place queried relative to adapter name with "ipconfig /all" is:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\PCI\VEN****\****\

**** for privacy, I hate big numbers I don't understand.

"DeviceDesc"="VIA Rhine II Fast Ethernet Adapter" "Mfg"="VIA Technologies, Inc." []'s

Open "cmd" from start , run regmon, do a ipconfig /all, then stop regmon clicking on the icon at top. CTRL-F to find entry. Regmon produces a lot of output. I prefer the old version of regmon, before window$ bought sysinternals.

Nice work. VEN... is the Vendor Number and hardware ID of the device. Go thee unto the Device Manager, right click on the desired Network device, select: Properties -> Details -> Device Instance ID which should give the proper VEN... number. In my case, the Linksys PCI card yields: PCI\VEN_1814&DEV_0201&SUBSYS_00321737&REV_01\4&1D52E508&0&00F0 Digging back into the registry under: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\PCI\ and finding the VEN... number on the list. Mine shows the two Linksys PCI WMP54G devices, one installed, one long gone. Under the DeviceDesc key is the description and the "Friendly Name" displayed by the Device Manager.

Tweaking the description to see what happens... Nothing. However, I'm bizzee right now and don't want to reboot or restart the IP stack. Maybe later tonite. You probably found the correct key, but I'm not sure.

Regmon is dead. Long live Process Monitor:

One mans enhancements is another mans clutter.

Nope. Tweaking the description and rebooting didn't change the output of IPCONFIG.

I can't even change the description. "Error: Changing value of DeviceDesc" Error writing content of new value.... (a rough translation, my windows is Portuguese) So maybe it pools the hardware. It is a constant, appears to be unchangeable. FWIW []'s

Huh? I had no trouble changing any of the descriptions. The problem is finding which one to change.

If you want to change the permissions, go up one directory in REGEDIT, right click, and select "Permissions". Give yourself permission to read/write/change/whatever the contents, and the registry keys below the directory. Some viruses like to change the permissions so you can't change the keys, making repair difficult.

OK, that worked ipconfig /all

BEFORE: Adaptador Ethernet Conexão local:

Sufixo DNS específico de conexão . : Descrição . . . . . . . . . . . . . : VIA Rhine II Fast Ethernet Adapter

Endereço físico . . . . . . . . . . : 00-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx DHCP ativado. . . . . . . . . . . . : Sim Configuração automática ativada . . : Sim Endereço IP . . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.0.2 Máscara de sub-rede . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0 Gateway padrão. . . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.0.1 Servidor DHCP . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.0.1 Servidores DNS. . . . . . . . . . . : 127.0.0.1

AFTER: Adaptador Ethernet Conexão local:

Sufixo DNS específico de conexão . : Descrição . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Bubba Endereço físico . . . . . . . . . . : 00-xxxxxxxxxxxx DHCP ativado. . . . . . . . . . . . : Sim Configuração automática ativada . . : Sim Endereço IP . . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.0.2 Máscara de sub-rede . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0 Gateway padrão. . . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.0.1 Servidor DHCP . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.0.1 Servidores DNS. . . . . . . . . . . : 127.0.0.1 Concessão obtida. . . . . . . . . . : quinta-feira, 14 de outubro d

/////////// So that is where ipconfig looks for it. :) []'s I'll try a reboot

..........................

After a reboot, hardware manager tells me my card is called Bubba, and in network neighborhood/properties I am connected via "Bubba" to the internet. So it seems that is where the network card info is kept. :) Dunno why yours didn't work. Try regmon or whatever with a piece of the network card name as an "include" filter. Include filter "Bubb" now takes me directly to the key when I run ifconfig /all. (you don't even need the "/all" option.)