I have a Win XP PC which is connected to the internet and set up to share its internet connection over a wired network. This means it becomes a DHCP server, giving the other devices on the network a different IP address each time.

I would like to set some (or all if possible) of the other devices on the network to have a static IP. What do I need to do to achieve this without losing the Internet connection sharing? Is it as simple as setting the static IP on each device and Windows will then honour that and not try to change it or simply not see the device, or are there some deeply buried settings to change in Windows networking?

No answers, just questions:

A/ What is it you are trying to achieve?
B/ Why are you using ICS? Why not a $30usd router?

Your DHCP server has a range of IP address it can hand out, you need to select an IP address outside of that range, but on the same subnet.

Normally I just set the DHCP server to hand out addresses in a portion of the subnet, then I just assign statics in the remaining space.

ie. your home network runs in the 192.168.0.0/24 address space. Set the DHCP server to hand out addresses from 192.168.0.50 to 192.168.0.254. Then assign addresses from the 192.168.0.1 to 192.168.0.49 range to your static devices. Bear in mind one of those addresses is likely to be your router address so you can't use that one. Mine are always at .1.

I've seen users on other forums telling people to just use the DHCP address they were given and set it as a static. It'll probably work until the DHCP server assigns that address to someone else. You don't want to do that.

No idea how you do it in XP but I use DHCP but statically assign addresses. The devices use DHCP but the DHCP server always give out the same IP for that MAC address. Anything that doesn't have an address predefined gets one out of the dynamic pool. Some stuff like networking infrastructure e.g. router, switches, firewall and APs get a static IP without DHCP.

Thanks for the replies everyone.

The main reason I want static IP is sheer laziness! I am getting tired of searching for my NASs every time I want to do some admin on them in a browser. Potentially, at some point I may look at setting up FTP access over the internet too.

As an aside, what are the main pros and cons of static IP vs DHCP?


How (in XP Professional)? Thanks.

I'm guessing that the XP Pro DHCP server is built into ICS. If it's not obvious how to set up the server, I'd imagine that it's not configurable at all. Or it's a registry modification.

I'm so reliant on Bonjour now for local LAN discovery. Falkor.local gets to my NAS whatever IP it might have chosen. Though unfortunately the Airport router doesn't have the ability to do port mapping to a bonjour name, it still requires an IP. So for that same reason of internet accessibility, I have the router setting the IP of the NAS to a consistent address.

Bitt, yes, as soon as you set up ICS the PC becomes a DHCP server.

The link you provided would have been the ideal solution, (thank you) only that registry key referenced in the article doesn't exist in my registry. I hate Windows, unfortunately I am tied to it for this as I have to run a windows-only program to interface with my ISP.

It looks as though it is going to be easier to leave things as they are and just put up with searching for the NASs each time.