When running WINIPCFG.EXE in Windows 98SE, what happens if you click either of these buttons: “Release All” and “Renew All” ??
I’m not brave enough to experiment with those buttons, without knowing what they will do.
Certain settings in your network properties are intended to be distributed by the network that you connect to through a protocol named DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol).
Often, these settings include the IP address, the subnet mask, and DNS server addresses.
When you tell WINIPCFG to “release all”, it wipes those assignments from each of your network interfaces, essentially disconnecting you from the network. To re-establish those settings, you would click “renew all”, which would instruct the network interfaces to submit new requests for DHCP information from the network.
If you are having no problems with your network connections, there is no reason to release or renew. If you are having problems, there isn’t much risk.
If the renew fails for some reason, it should “renew” when you reboot.
It’s a DHCP thing. Basically, when you boot your machine (that’s connected to a dynamic-IP aware network), your machine puts out a message saying “I’m a machine on your network, what IP address should I use?”
Then, the machine that knows of these things shouts back, “You can use this IP address until <some time in the future>”.
The thought is, at some time in the future, your machine will then have to get a new IP address. But, if something’s wrong with your current setup, or you just feel like it, you can click “release all”, which says “I’m not going to use that address anymore”, and then click “renew all” which says “Ok, can I have another address now?”
Also note that oftentimes, the ip address you get will never expire, and the server will always give you the same ip address no matter how many times you click the buttons.
-lv
Thank you.