How to Change your IP Address under Windows

Changing your IP address under Windows is easy (as a matter of fact it's easy under Linux/Unix too, but this guide covers only Windows configuration). But please bear in mind, the change of IP will affect only the local area network settings (LAN) and it will not change your public IP that is visible to the outside world (the Internet).

If you wish to change your public IP visible to the Internet, you may want to contact your Internet Services Provider and ask them to change the IP for you. If your ISP assigned you with a dynamic IP, instead of a static one, you may want to restart your router / ADSL modem and see if a new IP is assigned to your connection. Read on to learn how to check your current IP address under WIndows.

The check your current IP address do the following:

1. Click Start in the Windows taskbar
2. Click Run in order to be able to type your command
3. Type cmd and hit enter. A command-line prompt will show up.
4. Now you are ready to execute commands in text-mode. In order to check your current IP address (either public or private) type the command ipconfig /all and hit enter
5. Among the information listed by this command, you can find DNS, IP addresses and other useful stuff

Now you have checked your IP address you may want to change it if you don't like it! But remember, if you obtained your IP from your ISP via DHCP, changing it will probably break your connection. Thus, you are advised not to manually change the IP unless you operate in the LAN environment.

To change your current IP under Windows do the following:

1. Click Start in the Windows taskbar
2. Click Run in order to be able to type your command
3. Type cmd and hit enter
4. Type ipconfig /release and hit enter to effectively delete all TCP/IP configuration for your network adapter 
5. Now go to Windows Control Panel and right-click on Network Places » Properties » Local Area Network
   
6. Right-click on Local Area Network and select Properties
7. The General tab has Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) on the list. Double-click it to get into configuration options
8. In General tab, click Use the following IP address to change your IP address. You can type any number you pick, but established conventions say that you should use something looking like this 192.168.1.1 or 127.0.0.1 for a private IP.
9. Navigating away from this text field will have the Subnet Mask properties automatically filled in for you
10. Click OK and then again OK to close these windows.

You're done. You just changed your IP address. To see if it has worked, type ipconfig /all in command prompt.

If something went wrong and you can't connect to any host or you want to revoke your default DHCP settings, you may want to type ipconfig /renew in the command line. Doing so will refresh all your settings and (hopefully) restore your connection.