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As a tech writer who has reviewed an awful lot of software products over the years, the ones I like the most are the... Advanced IP Scanner – Simple Yet Powerful

As a tech writer who has reviewed an awful lot of software products over the years, the ones I like the most are the ones that are good, and also, free. Advanced IP Scanner is just such one product. Its mechanics are robust, its features powerful, and the interface is simple, but deceptively rich.  In short that means, Advanced IP Scanner looks good, and is easy to use.

What Is Advanced IP Scanner?

A good question. Essentially, Advanced IP Scanner is simply a reliable, hardworking, and free network scanner that can analyze your local area networks and report back on them, displaying all the information in a simple and logical manner on the screen.

Sometimes, no matter how well a local area network is setup trying to find the office shared folders or networked printers can be a nightmare.

advanced ip scanner

Fortunately, this (free) software makes it all rather easy, as does taking remote control of other PC’s on the LAN, allowing you to work on them, or even shut them down if needed.  And in case you’re wondering, yes it can also turn them back on again as long as the PC in question has this feature enabled.

What’s more, and this was something I thought was rather smart, when you do scan your network, you don’t have to scan your entire network.

advanced ip scanner screenshot

Advanced IP Scanner has the ability to ‘bookmark’ certain PCs and network devices of your choice, and only scan through them.  It’s a really nifty little feature, and can help you out when you’re looking for that one pesky router that’s causing you network issues….

Advanced IP Scanner is also available to download as a portable edition which is just as easy to use and will fit quite snugly on pretty much any modern pen drive, or can be run straight from the desktop without any installation required.

The program also works really well on pretty much every version of Windows going, and from what I can tell from my own personal evening of trying Advanced IP Scanner out, most hardware as well.

So when I did scan my LAN, Advanced IP Scanner didn’t miss a trick. It picked up all my machines, wired first, then wireless, including the printers, routers, Android devices and also my Windows Phone.

Another really nice thing to see was the Mac Address detection and reporting.  Not everyone will need such a feature of course, but for those that do, it’s always nice to see it included in a program like this up front and center, and not buried away in the background somewhere.

It worked seamlessly with my Windows 10 laptop, powered through the Windows 8 PC, and also worked fine on the Window 7 Netbook.

I think it would also work well with previous version of Windows before this as well, but unfortunately last week, my old Vista machine finally went to silicon valley, so going forward, that particular OS will no longer be taking any part in my software tests.

Final thoughts then are that Advanced IP Scanner is a powerful yet slim feeling Windows Network Scanner that both novices and advanced IT admins can use easily to get good results, and you should be considered as a first choice for anyone looking for this type of software.