ICS stops working with static IPs

[surd615]

I have a small home network with a Win2K PC with dial-up to the net, and two other Pcs running winME/98SE, which share the internet connection. This works fine as long as the two client machines are set to obtain IPs automatically. If I set them up with static IP addresses, they cannot connect to the 'net. What could be the reason for this?

 

[obenton]

Try server as 192.168.0.1 / 255.255.255.0 - and other PCs in the same subnet.

 

[goldboyd]

what do you have the ip's, subnet, gateway, and dns servers set at? usually a common mistake when switching from dhcp to static is people forget to specify dns servers.

 

[surd615]

obenton
That's exactly the way I set it up.

goldboyd
That's what I didn't do on the Win2K box 😱 . I haven't set up gateway and DNS. However I'm only running a small network that is workgroup based and I don't want to make it any more complex than needed. I was trying the static IPs because I was told I needed them to add my linux notebook to the network. Do I need a dedicated DNS server or can I use the Win2K box and does it have to be on for the other systems to see each other?
Thanks.

PS: I agree wholeheartedly with your sig

 

[blstriker]

ICS usually forces itself to be the DHCP server. I haven't found a way to turn off the DHCP server in ICS, so a dedicated DHCP wouldn't really help. A problem with your network may be that ICS may be attempting to assign the numbers you already have as static to other computers (if there are any). ICS works best when you let ICS be the dhcp server and then configure all your other computers to obtain IP numbers from the ICS computer. You linux notebook should have no problem getting an IP number from the ICS machine. In many ways, a network with a dhcp server is simpler than one where you assign static IP to each computer manually.