Help with LAN setup please

[babcom]

Hi,
I'm trying to get three PCs to connect on a LAN at home using an unmanaged wired switch and I want to use a Homegroup setup. All PC's are connected with standard cat5e cables and all have the homegroup password. The problem is that the network is set as Public. I can change this to Home by going to the homegroup page and clicking on "What is a location" (I think this is what it is, I'm not at home at the minute) and this will bring up the Set Network Location dialogue and allow me to change the network to Home and allow me to connect but when I next switch on the PC's, the network is reset to Public.

From reading around, I need to set a Default Gateway in the TCP/IP v4 area connection properties to allow me to set the network permanently to Home but when I do an ipconfig /all command, this entry is blank. I do see an IP address and a subnet mask.
Is this what I need to do and how do i get the default gateway address? Do I also put in the IP address and subnet mask and where exactly do I enter this information?

My knowledge of networks is very limited. I run windows 7 x64 on all three PC's.

Thanks.

 

[OSXMan]

So what is your real issue here?

When I used this kind of setup about 5 or six years ago all you do is set the homegroup on all the PC's to the same thing, give each pc their own IP and the default gateway and subnet mask are the same on each PC.

Why not invest in a cheap router? Or even a server that can handle the dns and DHCP function?

 

[mammador]

I don't think setting static IPs for each device makes sense. A basic topology could be this:

Modem - Router - Switch - Hosts/nodes (,i.e. your PCs)

Access the configuration mode in the router, and set DHCP to cover all current and potential hosts.