How to configure TCP/IP Settings

How to configure TCP/IP
To configure TCP/IP, follow these steps:

1. Click Start go to Settings, click Network Connections and a new window will open up.

2. Right-click the Local Area Connection that you want to configure, and then click Properties.

3. On the General tab (for a local area connection), or the Networking tab (for all other connections), highlight Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), and then click Properties.

4. In most cases you will want to check Obtain an IP address automatically and click Obtain DNS server address automatically.

5. If you want to manually configure IP addresses or DNS server addresses, click Use the following IP address and Use the following DNS server addresses, and then type the preferred IP address and DNS server with alternate DNS server IP addresses in the Preferred DNS server and Alternate DNS server boxes.

Why would you set your IP Address manually In some cases you may want your home computer on your network to use the same IP address every time. You may have configured your router to forward some ports for certain applications. You may have the IP address memorized and want to be able to access it from other computers on the network. There can be a number of reasons to do this. it is really easy to do and only takes a little research. Depending on your router your Default Gateway may vary. Your Subnet mask will be the same in most cases and your IP Address will be dependant on what number you choose. For this sake I will give the most common IP's in this case.

As for DNS servers, you are going to want to get these from your ISP.

Default Gateway: 192.168.0.1 This is the most common on home routers.
IP Address: 192.168.0.2 (you can use .2 or anything up to .254)
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0 (pretty much doesn't change)