trying to extend a network

Archived from groups: alt.comp.networking.connectivity (More info?)

Oh God It's Him Again wrote:
> Greetings
<snip>
>
> I have tried doing a "repair" but the end message is "The network did not
> assign a network address to the computer"
>
> Can anyone please walk me through what I need to do to get this working.
>
> All 3 computers have Windows XP.


That error might be the clue. The machine is requesting a network
address for itself from the router using the DHCP protocol, but for some
reason isn't being given it.

The most likely reason for this is that DHCP hasn't been enabled on the
router. In turn this means that the machines currently on the network
have fixed IP addresses, and you need to give your new machine a fixed
IP address to.

Check this by going to one of the machines that's on the network,
getting a command prompt (type "cmd" on the "Run..." item of the Start
bar) and typing "ipconfig /all" (without the inverted commas). I get the
following:

Windows 2000 IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : monoplane
Primary DNS Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Broadcast
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : 3Com GigaW4NK4 XI
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-50-04-40-0D-5D
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.7.2
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.20.1
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 212.159.13.49
212.159.13.50

Which tells me that I have a fixed IP address, and it's 192.168.7.2 -
i.e. I'm not using DHCP.

Give your new machine an IP address in the same range - in my case that
would be 192.168.7.3 (for example). All the other numbers (Gateway,
etc.) should be the same.

Hope that makes sense.