On 15/01/2008, John Seago seago.john@googlemail.com wrote:

I am connected to the internet via a Netgear DG834 Router, which has four outlets. Up until now I have been the only user. (thus I have never had any need to even consider the matter of more than a single user). My wife's god-daughter is due to vist shortly with her laptop, can I just plug her lap-top into one of the three vacant outlets and assign her the next number in the 192.168.0.X series? Do I need to turn the router off to plug in an extra outlet?

As she is using Microsoft I presume there will be some kind of 'Wizard' that will take us through the necessary steps.

If you're running a DHCP server on the router (most do, out of the box) and the laptop is configured to ask for an IP by DHCP (most Windows installations are, out of the box), you should just be able to plug in the network cable and boot the laptop - it'll auto-configure everything when it notices the network is connected.

Of course, if you're network is configured differently, you may need to do more work ...

Peter.