Wireless Network Watcher is a small utility that scans your wireless network and displays the list of all computers and devices that are currently connected to your network.
For every computer or device that is connected to your network, the following information is displayed: IP address, MAC address, the company that manufactured the network card, and optionally the computer name.
You can also export the connected devices list into html/xml/csv/text file, or copy the list to the clipboard and then paste into Excel or other spreadsheet application.
Using Wireless Network Watcher
Wireless Network Watcher doesn't require any installation process or additional dll files. In order to start using it, simply extract the executable file (WNetWatcher.exe) from the zip file, and run it.
If you want, you can also download WNetWatcher with full install/uninstall support (wnetwatcher_setup.exe), so a shortcut for running WNetWatcher will be automatically added into your start menu.
After running WNetWatcher, it automatically locates your wireless adapter, and scans your network. After a few seconds, you should start see the list of computers that are currently connected to your network.
If from some reason, WNetWatcher failed to locate and scan your network, you can try to manually choosing the correct network adapter, by pressing F9 (Advanced Options) and choosing the right network adapter.
Columns Description
- IP Address: IP Address of the device or computer.
- Device Name: The name of the device or computer. This field may remain empty if the computer or the device doesn't provide its name.
- MAC Address: The MAC address of the network adapter.
Network Adapter Company:The company that manufactured the network adapter, according to the MAC Address. This column can help you to detect the type of the device or computer. For example, if the company name is Apple, the device is probably a Mac computer, iPhone, or iPad.
if the company name is Nokia, the device is probably a cellular phone of Nokia.
By default, this utility uses an internal MAC addresses database stored inside the .exe file, but it's not always updated with the latest MAC address assignments.
You can manually download the latest MAC addresses file from
http://standards.ieee.org/develop/regauth/oui/oui.txtand then put oui.txt in the same folder where WNetWatcher.exe is located. When you run WNetWatcher.exe, it'll automatically load and use the external oui.txt instead of the internal MAC addresses database.
- Device Information:This column displays 'Your Computer' if the device is the computer that you currently use. This column displays 'Your Router' if the device is the wireless router.
- User Text:You can assign your own text to any device detected by WNetWatcher. By default, this field is filled with the device name. In order to change the User Text, simply double-click the item and type the desired text.
- Active:Specifies whether this device is currently active. When a device is not detected anymore, the 'Active' value is turned from 'Yes' to 'No'
Background Scan
Starting from version 1.15, there is a new option under the Options menu - 'Background Scan'.
When it's turned on, Wireless Network Watcher first make the regular fast network scan to discover all current connected devices. After that, a continuous background scan is activated to discover when new devices are connected to your network. The background scan is slower and less intensive then the regular scan, so it won't overload your computer and you can leave it to run in the background while using other programs.
When the background scan is running, a counter of the scan process is displayed in the second section of the bottom status bar.
When the background scan is used, you can use the 'Beep On New Device' option to get a beep sound when a new device is detected.
Command-Line Options
| /cfg <Filename> | Start Wireless Network Watcher with the specified configuration file. For example:
WNetWatcher.exe /cfg "c:\config\wnw.cfg"
WNetWatcher.exe /cfg "%AppData%\WNetWatcher.cfg" |
| /stext <Filename> | Scan your network, and save the network devices list into a regular text file. |
| /stab <Filename> | Scan your network, and save the network devices list into a tab-delimited text file. |
| /scomma <Filename> | Scan your network, and save the network devices list into a comma-delimited text file (csv). |
| /stabular <Filename> | Scan your network, and save the network devices list into a tabular text file. |
| /shtml <Filename> | Scan your network, and save the network devices list into HTML file (Horizontal). |
| /sverhtml <Filename> | Scan your network, and save the network devices list into HTML file (Vertical). |
| /sxml <Filename> | Scan your network, and save the network devices list into XML file. |
