Finding Your IP Address
An IP address is a number that uniquely identifies your computer
among all of the machines on the internet. It is usually displayed
as a series of four or six numbers separated by periods.
If you want to host a NetPlay session, remote users need your IP
address to establish a connection. Unfortunately, if your computer
has more than one way to connect to the internet, it will have more
than one IP address. If so, you might need to experiment a little
to determine which IP address to use.
For example, you may have a network card that connects to a DSL
modem, and that network card will have an IP address. You may also
have a modem for dial-up access, and that modem will have its own
IP address. Furthermore, it's possible that other network adapters
are installed on your computer even if you don't use them.
The most reliable way to find out what IP addresses are known to
your computer is to click on the Windows
Start menu, click on Run, enter
the command IPCONFIG, and press
Enter. (IPCONFIG doesn't have to be in
capital letters.)
If you are unable to run the IPCONFIG command from the Run
window, try opening the MS-DOS Prompt or
Windows Command Prompt. When the window
appears, type the command IPCONFIG and
press Enter.
Windows will open a new window that displays a list of all of
the installed adapters and their IP addresses. If you have multiple
adapters installed, you may need to scroll up the screen to find
the first listed adapter.
NOTE: If you cannot scroll from the
MS-DOS window, type the IPCONFIG
command again but add a space and then type
|more.
If an adapter is not in use, it may have an IP address of
0.0.0.0, and it can be ignored. If you have more than one adapter
with a non-zero IP address, one of them will allow remote users to
connect to your computer. It's not always obvious which one, so you
may need to experiment a little.
NOTE:
IP Addresses can change over time. If you connect to the internet
through a modem, chances are you will be assigned a different IP
Address each time you connect. If you use a DSL connection, you may
have a different IP Address assigned each time you reboot the
computer and reestablish the connection to your DSL
provider.
As a result, if you regularly host NetPlay sessions, you may
need to provide a different IP address to your remote users on
different days or even at different times on the same day,
depending on your setup and how often you connect and disconnect
from your internet provider.
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