How to Scan Your Network on Windows (No Admin Rights Needed)

Need to find every device on your network? Whether you're troubleshooting connectivity, auditing what's exposed on your LAN, or simply curious what's connected, this guide walks you through scanning a Windows network from start to finish — using Open IP Scanner (OIS). The whole process takes under a minute and requires no admin rights for basic discovery.

Step 1 — Install OIS (30 seconds)

Open PowerShell (Start Menu → search "PowerShell" → click). You do not need to right-click and "Run as Administrator" for this step. Paste this command and press Enter:

This downloads and runs OIS directly. The application window will open immediately. No installer, no files left behind after you close it. Alternatively, download the portable .exe from the releases page.

Step 2 — Select Your Subnet

When OIS opens, it automatically detects all active network interfaces on your machine and populates the IP range dropdown. If you have multiple adapters (Wi-Fi + Ethernet, or a VPN), each subnet appears as a separate option.

Select the subnet you want to scan from the dropdown. The range shows as 192.168.1.1-254 (or similar for your network). You can also type a custom range directly in the field, for example 10.0.0.1-10.0.0.254.

Step 3 — Start the Scan

Click Start or press Enter. OIS immediately begins scanning the selected range. Results appear in real time as devices are discovered — you don't need to wait for the scan to finish to start reviewing results.

The status bar shows: active scan progress, number of hosts discovered so far, and total hosts scanned.

Step 4 — Understanding the Results

Each row in the results table represents a discovered device. The columns contain:

• IP Address — The device's IPv4 address on your subnet
• Status — Active / Inactive (OIS uses both ICMP and ARP, so devices that block ping still appear as Active if ARP responds)
• Name — Device hostname, resolved using up to 8 protocols (NetBIOS, SMB/NTLM, DNS, LLMNR, WSD, UPnP, SNMP, WMI)
• MAC Address — Hardware address of the network interface
• Manufacturer — Device vendor, identified from the MAC OUI database (e.g., "Apple", "Cisco", "Raspberry Pi")
• Open Ports — Common services detected as open (HTTP, HTTPS, SSH, RDP, SMB, etc.) with HTTP titles shown in parentheses for web ports
• Shared Folders — SMB shares accessible on Windows hosts

Step 5 — Filter and Search

Use the filter box above the results table to search across all columns simultaneously. Type any part of an IP address, device name, MAC address, manufacturer, or port name to instantly narrow the list. Useful examples:

• Type Raspberry to find all Raspberry Pi devices
• Type :80 to find all devices with HTTP open
• Type printer to find devices whose name or UPnP identity contains "printer"

Step 6 — Copy and Export Results

Right-click any row for options to copy the cell value, the full row, or the entire result set with column headers. This makes it easy to paste results into a spreadsheet, ticket, or documentation.

Tips for Better Results

• Run as Administrator for ARP scanning — finds devices that don't respond to ping (IoT, smartphones, strict firewalls)
• Run as Administrator for WMI name resolution — resolves Windows machine names with higher accuracy
• If a device shows as Inactive but you know it's online, it's likely blocking ICMP; admin mode ARP scanning will catch it
• Right-click a row and choose Update Name to re-run name resolution for a single host if it initially came back empty
• Multiple subnets? Run separate scans by selecting each subnet from the dropdown