c. In the “Local Area Connection Properties” window find and select the “Internet
Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IP)” item on the “Networking” tab. Click on the button labeled
“Properties.” The window that appears should look like Figure 6 below.
Figure 6: TCP/IP Properties Dialog Box
d. Notice in Figure 6 that two radio buttons are selected to indicate that this computer
will obtain an IP address automatically and a DNS3
server address automatically. This is the
default for Windows installations, and it simply means that the address used to identify the
location of the computer on the network is assigned by another computer or appliance that is
programmed to do so—a DHCP4
server. The DNS server is a computer that resolves a computer
name into a numerical (IP) address. Since there is no DNS server on your simple network, each
Windows computer will automatically assign itself an IP address within the 169.254.x.x range (if
you used a switch with DHCP capability, you will see a different IP range). This is a nonroutable
range that will cause problems as your network expands. We will save discussion of
these functions for another lab; however, if we need to set a fixed IP address for our computer,
this is the place to do it. To do so, select the “Use the following IP address” radio button and
type in an IP address and subnet mask in the text boxes. A good choice is 192.168.1.100 for
an IP address and 255.255.255.0 for the subnet mask for one computer and
192.168.1.101/255.255.255.0 for the other. Since the network in Figure 1 is isolated
from all other networks, you can leave the default gateway, preferred DNS server and Alternate
DNS server entries blank; however, you would need to enter these IP addresses if you are
connected to the Internet. The default gateway is a router or gateway that forms the boundary
between your network and the outside world. Once you have assigned the IP addresses and
subnet masks, click the “OK” button in Figure 6, followed by the “Close” buttons to return to the
Network and Sharing Center