Windows 2000 lets me change from dynamic to static IP addressing without rebooting my workstation. Our laptop users need to make this change because some of our subnets use static IP, others use DHCP. Is executing the change from within a script possible?

A. To make IP address changes from within a script, you can use Win2K's multipurpose Net Shell (Netsh) command. This command provides several functions that relate to viewing and changing IP addressing on a Win2K system. For example, to change a system from static IP addressing to dynamic DHCP-based addressing, open a command prompt and enter the following command:

netsh interface ip set address "" dhcp

where connection name is the name of the LAN adapter on which you're making the IP address configuration change. (By default, this adapter is called local area connection, but it might have a different name on machines with multiple LAN adapters or on machines that an administrator has manually renamed.)

To make the reverse change—that is, to change a connection or adapter from DHCP-configured addressing to static addressing—enter the following command:

netsh interface ip set address "" static  

where ip_address is the static IP address you wish to assign to the connection, netmask is the subnet mask (e.g., 255.255.255.0) associated with the IP address, gateway is the default gateway (if any) on the local IP subnet, and metric is an optional numeric value (e.g., 1, 2) that defines the number of hops to the default gateway (if one exists). For example, to change from DHCP-based addressing to the static IP address 10.1.1.2, mask 255.255.255.0, and gateway 10.1.1.1 (metric 1), you'd enter

netsh interface ip set address "local area connection" static 10.1.1.2 255.255.255.0 10.1.1.1 1