Win7 DHCP and Static IP simultaneously
Windows 7 (and Vista) does not permit a static IP address and DHCP support to co-exist on the same NIC. The registry hack that works for XP does not work on newer Windows. I needed to add an extra local IP address for testing of some server software, but my NIC needs to use DHCP in the office. The solution was to install the Microsoft Loopback Adapter and assign a local IP address to it. Installation was easy:
- Run a command prompt as Administrator.
- Run the command: hdwwiz.exe
- Select the manual installation option.
- Select Network adapters and install the Microsoft Loopback Adapter
- Configure the new local connection in the Network and Sharing Center
I picked a 10.*.*.* address, used the same IP as the gateway and 255.0.0.0 as the mask, then configured the server software to listen on this new IP address. Of course, this address is not visible on my network but as I only want to test the software locally this is fine.
Putting a routable static IP on a DHCP enabled NIC in Win7 is still eluding me.
Categorised as: Networking