How to Create a Static IP Address (Windows 7)

If you are using programs that communicate over the Internet (especially things like p2p file-sharing programs), you will need to create a static IP address. This guide shows you how to accomplish this on the Windows 7 operating system.

If you use a program that transfers files over an Internet connection, there is a good chance that you’ll need to create a Static IP address. Otherwise, your connection on, say, a network, will either be limited or blocked altogether. Fortunately, creating a static IP address is simply a few short steps away. In this guide, we’ll show you how to create a static IP address in Windows 7. Other Windows operating systems generally have a similar method to creating it, it’s just that the options you’ll need are moved around into different portions of the operating system.

By default, you’ll probably have a dynamic IP address. This sort of means that your address will occasionally move around and be different numbers. To create a static IP address, you’ll need what those numbers are at that given moment. So, the first thing you need to do is to click on your Start menu. In the search bar, type in “cmd” (short for command prompt):

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What you need is cmd.exe. Click that and you’ll get a DOS prompt window:

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Now, all you need to do here is type in “ipconfig /all” (without quotes) and hit enter:

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As you can see along the top, I typed in ipconfig /all and hit enter. I got a whole bunch of information about what my Internet set up is (almost all of it censored for privacy reasons). What you are after are 5 IP addresses: The IPv4 Address, the Subnet Mask, the Default Gateway, and the 2 DNS Servers. Have these numbers written down or just leave t5he window up for now.

Now, you need to do the second half of setting up your static IP address – inputting this information. For that, we need to access our Network and Sharing Center. Essentially, you just click on the Internet connection icon in your system tray (located on the bottom right corner). If it’s a wireless connection, it should be the icon with an ascending staircase of bars. Once you see all of your available connections list, just click “Open Network and Sharing Center”:

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In the window that pops up, you’ll want to click on “Change adapter settings”:

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Choose the network connection you use (if there is only one item in the next window, just double-click that one). You’ll then get the following pop-up window:

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Click on the “Properties” button. You’ll get a pop-up screen asking you if you want to allow, essentially, yourself to make changes to your computer. Click “yes”. You’ll next come to with window:

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Click on “Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4)”. Next, click “Properties”. You’ll get a window like this:

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If you have a dynamic IP address, the radials “Obtain an IP address automatically” and “Obtain DNS server address automatically” will both be selected. We need to click on “Use the following IP address:” and “Use the following DNS server addresses:” so we can input our static information (as highlighted above). You’ll now need to input this information manually.

For “IP address:” type in the IP address you got for the “IPv4 Address” you got from the cmd thing you got earlier. For “Subnet mask”, type in the IP address you got for the Subnet Mask from earlier. Default gateway is, yup, Default Gateway from earlier. In the Preferred DNS server, type in the first DNS server IP address you got from “DNS Servers” earlier. For “Alternate DNS server:”, type in the second IP address you got from “DNS Servers”. When done, clicki “OK”.

Now, open a new tab or new window in your browser and test to see if you still have a working internet connection. Go to a site like Google and search for something. If you suddenly cannot access anything, go back to that “Internet Protocol Version 4″ window and click on the radials it was before (Obtain an IP address automatically” and “Use the following DNS server addresses”) and click OK. You’ll go back to using a dynamic IP address again. When you can access websites again, check over to make sure you typed in the addresses correctly. If they weren’t typed in correctly, just re-type them back in after clicking the appropriate radials I highlighted earlier. If they were correct, go back to the part of the tutorial where I got you to type in “ipconfig /all” and repeat the steps again (you may have gotten a new address while you were following along in this tutorial).

If your Internet connection is working fine with a static IP address configuration, congratulations, you have successfully set up a static IP address! You are half way there to fully using numerous applications that use the Internet!

So, now that you have a static IP address, you’ll need to do what is known as a “port forward”. Unfortunately, this is an exceedingly complex process only because everyone has different routers and different applications they want to forward ports. So the appropriate steps are always going to be different. The good news is that there is a website devoted to this kind of stuff. Go to this page on the portforward.com website, click on the router that you use, click on the software you want to use port forwarding on, and follow the steps from there. The steps will likely include setting up a static IP address, but you can ignore the steps you have already accomplished here and simply configure your router using the steps described in their wide array of software and router specific tutorials. Once you have set up a static IP address for one program, you have set it up for all of the programs available out there.

That’s it!

Happy computing!

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