Bdtyktl

If I setup a router/modem to have DHCP range of 10.0.0.1 to 10.0.0.50, How do I manually assign one of the machines an IP address out of that range - eg. 10.0.0.51?

I need to do this so that I can give one machine a fixed IP address so that I can setup port-forwarding for Remote Desktop.

Yes you can. I would actually recommend doing it this way as it prevents any conflicts with the DHCP. Most guides on setting static IPs will tell you to put it outside the DHCP range. As long its on the same subnet. If your router was 192.168.1.1 you would want to keep the 192.168.1.X. Im pretty sure changing the subnet can make problems.

To actually do this, go Control Panel, Network Connections, right click on the connection you want to set up and go Properties. Click on TCP/IP, and click on properties.

Change the radio button from Obtain automatically to 'Use the following IP address'. Enter in the IP that you want to use, press tab to go to subnet mask, press tab again and it will auto fill itself. The Default Gateway is the IP of your router, so it knows where the internet can be found. You should set the DNS settings too if you're going to use the internet from the computer.

Thats it, you have now set a static IP!

Edit: This is for Win XP. Vista and 7 are slightly different, but same priciple and options.

Of course you can, that is a very common practice. Just make sure you use the proper subnet mask and default gateway so it can navigate around and outside the network.

I would recommend doing this by adding the mac address and desired ip address to your router's dhcp static ip configuraion rather than setting it in your device itself, and the set device to obtaid ip address automaticly this avoids the conflict between router and device and also the problem of no lan /internet access to the device