Pray for the Best
Windows XP almost always can automagically determine and detect a network connection. To see if it has detected your connection, go to Start -> Control Panel -> Network Connections. Look for the “LAN or High Speed Internet” heading and find your LAN connection under the listing. Note that VPN and 1394 Connections are usually not valid LAN connections and are not what you are looking for.
Supposing Windows does not automatically detect your LAN connection for you, recheck your media (cabling) and unplug then replug the RJ-45 into your computer. This is a rare occurrence and usually at the fault of lower-level hardware (or human error).
Making Sure TCP/IP Works
Next, you will need to double-click your connection. Another dialogue box should come up shortly.
To assure you have properly set up this connection, the dialogue box should read “Connected” and have both many sent and received packets. Now, double-click “Properties.” Once the properties dialogue box shows up, click on the text of “TCP/IP” and press “Properties.”
Now, make sure you have set it to “Obtain IP Address Automatically” and to “Obtain DNS Automatically.” Recall back to DHCP Configuration. The DHCP Server on your switch/router will assign your computer an IP rather than your computer declare one for itself in order to reduce the stress on the network and to avoid IP collision, or two or more computers claiming the same IP address. Also, remember that the IP addresses assigned by your router are internal ones and are not known to the outside Internet.
Once you have completed all of this, “OK” your way out of the dialogue boxes and now go to Start -> Run and type in the Run field “cmd” in order to open up a command prompt. Once the command prompt has opened, type in “ipconfig /all”
If your settings show up right away, you are good to go! You have successfully set up a basic TCP/IP network on Windows XP. Now, you are ready to configure your computer for more, but for now, your computer is a new node on a brand new network.
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