In particular, many older networking apps suffer this limitation.

You have certain apps that can only connect to network devices using their IP address.

Using IP addresses is often much handier when troubleshooting your network, for example.

You have a device (like a home media server, say) that you want to be able to find reliably and you (or other devices) prefer to locate it by IP address.

Mostly, that’s not a big deal, but there are times that you might want a device to have a static, unchanging IP address. The downside to automatic addressing is that it’s possible for a device’s IP address to change from time to time. It’s a handy way for devices to connect to your network more easily, because you don’t have to configure IP addressing for each new device yourself. Right now, the IP addresses for your PCs and other devices are probably assigned automatically by your router using a procotol known as Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP).

Join us as we take a look at assigning a static IP address in Windows. Sometimes, it’s better to assign a PC it’s own IP address rather than letting your router assign one automatically.

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