How do I share internet with my Windows 7 laptop such that DHCP is off?

Question

I basically want my Windows 7 Laptop to function as a switch. (like a router when DHCP is off).

Instead of getting 192.x.x.x addresses, I want public IP address assigned to everyone who connects to my Windows 7 created network, which is this case is 137.x.x.x

So, how do I do that?

I've done this with my router. Lets say for example your router has an IP of 12.34.56.0 then with DHCP disabled, all computers that connect to the router get IPs in the range of 12.34.56.(1-255)..

Disabling DHCP on a router acts a splitter of sorts for the port that the router is plugged in to. When a computer requests an IP address, the request goes past the router to the next level up (for most cases, that is the ISP (In my case, it's a school)).

I want DHCP disabled because my school tracks bandwidth via an IP / MAC address combination, so with DHCP disabled, when people connect to my computer (whenever this question gets answered) they will be using their bandwidth, and not mine (because they will have their own IP assigned by the school (ISP for non-school situations) )

Answer 1

Sounds like you want your computer to act as a bridge. Instead of using Windows' Internet Connection Sharing, which it sounds like you're using, you can use Windows' Network Bridge instead.

Go to your Network Connections window, select both connections you want (aka wired and wireless) using the control + click to select more than one, and right click and choose Bridge Connections. You may need to turn off ICS first.

Here's more information.

Answer 2

I don't think its possible to assign 1 static ip to many computers on your network and expect them to connect to the internet. That's why you have NAT, to translate it to private ip's.

If you have to connect multiple computers to your network to access they internet, they have to be assigned private ip addresses (the 192.x.x.x kind) either manually or by using DHCP,but it seems that you want to turn off DHCP.

Why don't you want to use DHCP, what do you want to achieve here? Is you objective here just to share your internet connection? What is your current networking layout i.e. how do you connect to the internet? (directly to a modem or via switch > router > modem or via router > modem)

Please do correct me if I have failed to grasp your question.

Answer 3

A router never acts like a switch. They are two different devices, working on two different layers of the OSI model.

My guess, you mean one of those cable/dsl home routers. Those are actually a router and a switch combined.

• The router portion of the device takes packets from one network (usually 192.168.XX.XX) and routes them to the other network (usually the public internet)

-The switch portion takes one network interface from the router, and allows you to plug multiple devices into the same network interface.

The router ends up giving the IPs to the devices on the switch using DHCP. In the event DHCP is turned off, then a system administrator is required to put an IP address into each machine within the range that the router is assigned to handle (it is still the same IP range as if DHCP were turned on)

From my understanding, it looks like you are trying to do one of two scenarios, depending on your school's connection:

1.) School provides wireless only: You are receiving the wireless signal, and pushing it out to each of your devices that do not have wireless capability -- Maybe you can look for a device, such as a wireless router, that you can configure to be a repeater, with a wired switch hanging off of it? [Bridging] -- Configure your laptop to do network bridging (http://forums.cnet.com/5208-19411_102-0.html?threadID=326988)

2.) School provides a wired connection, but there is only one port in the room, and you have more than one device -- Buy a switch. They're 20$