Network Settings

After you are sure all cabling is correctly set up and you have the permission needed from your local's network administrator or Internet Service Provider (ISP), the next step is to go to Control Panel (Start menu > Settings). Click Network and Dial-up Connections; in the opened window you should see a link named Local Area Network Right-click with your mouse on it and select properties from the menu that appears.

A settings window will open; focus on the list of the installed components (like protocols and services). You should have the Internet Protocol TCP/IP suite installed, plus preferably Client for Microsoft Networks and File and Printer Sharing. These packages are recommended for a typical usage of a computer in a Microsoft Network environment. If the packages are not installed, you can do this by clicking Install button bellow the list. Note that for installation you need the Windows Setup CD.

To start configuring your network settings, double click the Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) button. A popup window will show up with some fields that need to be filled in.

The first option that you consider is Obtain an IP address automatically. By selecting this, you enable something called Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol or simply DHCP. By doing this, the computer asks for all its settings when logging on; for refreshing these setting see the tutorial about basic command-line network applications.

If no DHCP server is available, Microsoft Windows looks in the network and self-assigns itself the first unused address from a specific class.

If you want to manually set all your settings, it would be a good idea to first contact your network administrator or Internet provider. They should tell you the correct settings.

The IP address is a unique address per network that identifies the PC. There are some standards implemented with IP addressing, but they will be explained in another tutorial.

The IP (v4) is written on 32 bits of data and it's usually expressed in "dotted decimal". It means that instead of writing 32 bits, we group them in 4 octets (8 bits) and transform them in decimal resulting a number like 192.168.17.1 for example.

Addressing in v6 is slowly implemented in controlled environments. The addresses are 128 bits long and were introduced because we almost ran out of v4 addresses due to the growing number of hosts.

The subnet mask marks the network bits of the IP; it is used for improving network performance and separating networks from each other. This was also a short-term solution for the exhaustion of addresses.

For understanding what a default gateway is, take a look at the picture below.

For the computers to communicate one with each other, they go through the switch. But if they want to access something outside the network, like a website, they must forward the packets to someone who knows what to do with them. So for delivering outside the network, the default gateway is used. It's the nearside interface of the router (server or dedicated equipment).

The Domain Name Service or DNS servers are used to resolve domains to IP addresses. You can post a Preferred and an Alternate server by default, because many networks use there own DNS records to speed up the process. If the address is not resolved by the first (or it times out), the second one is used.

By clicking the Advanced button you can configure pretty much the same, but you can add more addresses as DNS servers, enable WINS which is Microsoft's name service used in local area networks or configure some security options like TCP/IP filtering (improve security by telling what ports can be used in communication to other systems).

Subscribe now via RSS feed and get all the new tutorials