Probably already know the answer is no..but...XP DHCP Server?

N

NecessaryEvil

Guest
Is there any way to turn a Windows XP machine into a DHCP server?

I'm a week away from taking my Server 2003 system down and refitting it with gaming hardware(my 6800GT and Audigy2) and a fresh load of XP.

However, while I was running it with Server 2003, I had one of the NICs set for DHCP serving to my laptop (over a gigabit line).

Anyway to keep that going, or am I going to have to stick with the 169. automated networking (or a less desirable static IP setup)
 
XP cannot do DHCP without some kind of third pary software.

Why would static IP be less than desirable? Do you have a router than can do DHCP?
 
What you might be able to do (provided you have two NIC's) is to use ICS. That will set the second NIC as a static IP and will automatically dole out IP's to whatever else is connected on the other end (ala DHCP). ICS isn't a real DHCP server (like 2k3), but it kind of acts like one.

Offhand, I'm not sure how many people can connect this way (it may only be one) but it might be worth looking into. Takes all of five minutes to setup and test. Actually, it sounds like that's what you already had setup albeit probably a little more complicated on the 2k3 side.

On the other hand, a cheap router is easy to come by and will do what you are looking for as well, with a minimum of fuss (not sure how cheap gigabit routers are).

Just thoughts.

 
A router is overkill for my needs.

I just wanted a direct line between my laptop and my desktop, over gigabit ethernet.

I'll just stick with the 169 IPs given out automatically...I don't want any more resources being taken up than necessary (therefore no ICS)

As for a static IP...well...that's just a matter of laziness. I don't want to have to switch my laptops between static IP and DHCP every time I feel a need to transfer a lot of files.
 
There seem to be plenty of free open source DHCP servers for Windows. I can't recommend one in particular because I never have had a situation that warranted. I'd suspect that most all of them would work fine for your situation.
 
Just stick with APIPA's 169 address, there really isn't a need for static IPs on XP in a home environment because of this (since you don't want a router). You just have to deal with IP range XP uses...

 
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