How to Configure Windows XP TCP/IP to Use DNS

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This article describes how to configure Windows XP TCP/IP to use the Domain Name Service (DNS).

DNS is an Internet service that translates domain names into IP addresses. On the Internet, whenever you use a domain name a DNS service needs to translate the name into the corresponding IP address. For example, the domain name www.reskit.com might translate to 178.145.135.6.

In a corporate network, you can configure Windows XP to automatically detect the IP address of the domain controller. In addition, you can manually configure IP addresses. Both methods are explained below.

To configure TCP/IP

  1. Click Start, click Control Panel, click Network and Internet Connections, and then click Network Connections.

  2. Right-click the network connection that you want to configure, and then click Properties.

  3. On the General tab (for a local area connection), or the Networking tab (for all other connections), click Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), and then click Properties.

  4. If you want to obtain DNS server addresses from a DHCP server, click Obtain DNS server address automatically, as shown in Figure 1 below.

    Obtaining DNS server addresses from a DHCP server

    Figure 1. Obtaining DNS server addresses from a DHCP server

  5. If you want to manually configure DNS server addresses, click Use the following DNS server addresses, and in Preferred DNS server and Alternate DNS server, type the preferred DNS server and alternate DNS server IP addresses.

To configure the advanced DNS properties:

  1. Click Advanced, and then click the DNS tab.

  2. Configure the DNS properties by following the steps that are outlined in the following sections in this article:

  3. To Configure an Additional DNS Server IP Address

  4. To Modify the Resolution Behavior for Unqualified DNS Names

  5. To Modify DNS Dynamic Update Behavior

To configure an additional DNS server IP address

  1. Under DNS server addresses, in order of use, click Add.

  2. In TCP/IP DNS server, type the IP address of the DNS server, and then click Add, as shown in Figure 2 below.

    Figure 2. Configuring an Additional DNS Server IP Address

    Figure 2. Configuring an Additional DNS Server IP Address

To modify the resolution behavior for unqualified DNS names

  1. To resolve an unqualified name by appending the primary DNS suffix and the DNS suffix of each connection (if configured), click Append primary and connection specific DNS suffixes. If you also want to search the parent suffixes of the primary DNS suffix up to the second-level domain, click to select the Append parent suffixes of the primary DNS suffix check box.

  2. To resolve an unqualified name by appending the suffixes from a list of configured suffixes, click Append these DNS suffixes (in order), and then click Add to add suffixes to the list.

  3. To configure a connection-specific DNS suffix, type the DNS suffix in DNS suffix for this connection.

To modify DNS dynamic update behavior

  1. To use a DNS dynamic update to register the IP addresses of this connection and the primary domain name of the computer, click to select the Register this connection's addresses in DNS check box. This option is enabled by default. The primary domain name of the computer is the primary DNS suffix appended to the computer name and can be viewed as the full computer name on the Computer Name tab, which is available in the System properties in Control Panel.

  2. To use a DNS dynamic update to register the IP addresses and the connection-specific domain name of this connection, click to select the Use this connection's DNS suffix in DNS registration check box. This option is disabled by default. The connection-specific domain name of this connection is the DNS suffix for this connection appended to the computer name.

    Note  To completely disable DNS dynamic update for all names on the computer, click to clear the Register this connection's addresses in DNS and the Use this connection's DNS suffix in DNS registration check boxes for all connections in Network Connections.