Will my Wireless IP address change on format->reinstall?

It depends - if you use a static address (manually  entered), you'll have to re-enter it along with any security information (WEP/WPA codes).  If it's on a DHCP (server-provided address) server, if you do the format/reinstall before the TTL on the DHCP lease expires (usually 3+ days), you'll likely get back the same address and will then only have to re-enter WEP/WPA information.

Eh? I appreciate your help very much, but I probably should have mentioned that my knowledge on this particular area is somewhat rudimentary. You can sprout off any number of other Computer Acronyms and I know whats going on, but not in this case.

What are WEP/WPA codes and TTL. What do you mean by "DHCP lease expires" too?

I am grateful for your patience and look forward to an answer.

Message Edited by klick_on_me on 04-01-2004 11:16 PM

Your best bet is to contact your support staff, or whomever set up your system the first time around.  Chances are whatever was done then will be lost when you reformat, and need to be re-done.

Ok, I'm going to use some really simple terms here, so don't get offended!  If you really don't know much about networking, it can be a bit overwhelming.

When you originally set up your machine to use the school's network, did you have to do anything "special" to set it up?  By "special", I mean did you have to click here, enter this, click there, enter that, etc. etc. ad nauseam?  Or did you just turn it on and just start using it?

If you had to enter a bunch of stuff, you'll have to go through the procedure again if you reformat.

If you basically just turned it on, and maybe had to enter a couple of things (like maybe the name of the network?), then chances are pretty good you got your IP address automatically assigned by the network (that's DHCP, dynamic host configuration protocol).  We network weenies are very proud of all of our acronyms, and it's a good day when you can come up with a really cool TLA (three-letter acronym).

If it was automatically assigned, there's a TTL (time to live (yay! another TLA!)) associated with the address.  TTLs can be assigned to be practically any value - most run in the three-ish day range as default.  If you complete the process within the TTL window, you'll get the same IP address back when you log back in.  Your machine is identified by its hardware address, which is hard-coded on your network card by its manufacturer.  (The hardware address is the MAC address, your network card is your NIC - more TLAs!)

If the TTL expires, you'll automatically get another IP address assigned to your machine when you log back in.  That's not usually a problem unless you have some other system that uses your specific IP address for some sort of security check or something.  If that's the case, you'll need to find out how to get a static (non-changing) IP address from your local network weenie.

In summary:  1) lots of effort at first = lots of effort to redo; 2) turn it on and it worked = same thing now; 3) weird stuff that only your network weenie knows = repeat process.

HTH (Hope this helps! (another TLA!))

Glen
i8500
2.2GHz P4m
512Mb RAM
Radeon m9000 (Nvidia GeForce 5650 go sitting in a bag, waiting for copper shims...)

Eschew misoneism.