A very typical problem for people who travel with laptops is getting their laptop to work in multiple locations. Upon arrival at home, or a branch office, it is not unusual to spend several minutes changing the network setup, including IP address. A quick way to solve this problem comes from the book Windows 2003 Server Hacks:

You can switch IP addresses, using the NETSH command.

Create a file containing the current configuration: (including network card)

Netsh -c interface dump > filename.txt

Then, to use this configuration:

Netsh -f filename.txt

Obviously, you can create multiple files, one for each location, and name the files appropriately.

A windows shareware program is available that also does this. www.netswitcher.com, $14.00. Netswitcher not only will allow you to configure your IP address, but it also includes settings for eMail (smtp and pop settings) startup applications, domain membership, and proxies, mapped drives, mapped shares and default printer. The program’s help file includes a thoughtful discussion on the issues of working with Windows 2000/XP user accounts. Their web site faq also has some very nice background about networking in general.