Handy Windows IP Configuration Utility: Win IP Config

Ed Tittel — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 22:57:23 +0000

I teach online courses for HP and other vendors, and really enjoy that work. I often learn as much or more from the students as I feel like they’re learning from me. Case in point: in one of my Windows classes, a student asked me if there was any graphical utility like the old winipcfg utility that came with Win95, Win98, Win ME (and another student claimed even Windows 2000, but I didn’t remember this being available). So I went off to check and sure enough there’s a program called Wntipcfg.exe that was available for Windows 2000 and that even worked on XP that supported the same graphical abilities to manage IP protocol stuff, DHCP leases, and so forth, that Winipcfg.exe did for the older Win9x versions. The trouble is, this old tool won’t work (I tried, no go) with Vista or Windows 7, which have experienced enough TCP/IP internals changes in their makeup to make that program fail.

I went poking around to see what I could find by way of replacement, and unearthed this little gem: it’s called Win IP Config, and it’s freeware created by independent programmer Peter Kostov. Here’s a screenshot that shows what it can tell you about your network adapters (this one shows the info for my current hotel room Wi-Fi connection, including a Class A private IP address with a Class C subnet mask! It also accurately indicates that my Bluetooth and GbE interfaces are currently not in use):

All kinds of useful adapter info in a single screen

You can also use it for netstat info, to create and manage secondary IP address assignments, handle DHCP leases, and manage static IP routes. My only beef is that in an increasingly IPv6 world, this tool remains IPv4 only. But maybe Peter will stumble across this blog, and starting plugging away at what must surely be a nice enhancement to an already excellent tool. Here’s hoping!

Windows Enterprise Desktop » Win IP Config

Handy Windows IP Configuration Utility: Win IP Config