Click on the "START" button in the lower left hand corner. You will notice a new set of options: CONTROL PANEL, PRINTERS and TASKBAR. You should click on CONTROL PANEL, as illustrated in the screen shot. then click on "SETTINGS"
Now the Control Panel window should pop up, and should roughly look similar to the screen shot. Try to locate the "NETWORK" icon in the Control Panel window. Once you find it, double click it.
Now you should see something similar to the screen shot on the left. It should contain the little network card symbol, then the name of your ethernet card. If you see a lot more than this, for instance if you have a modem, and you see TCP/IP and IPX and NetBEUI, you should highlight one (click on the text with the left mouse button), and after the one is highlighted, hit the remove button next to add. Repeat this step until you just see the Network Card and the modem info if you have one installed.
Now we are ready to continue. Click on the "Add..." button, which is outlined in the screenshot by a green box (note: this green box does NOT appear on your screen, it is only to help point out where things are located.....if you see a green box there, then you have one wack system :). After clicking on "Add..." you should see another menu pop up, as shown in Step 4.
You now want to click on the text: "Protocol", which is the third option from the top. Once you have highlighted Protocol, you should click the "Add" button, which is outlined by the green box.
A new menu list will pop up, which should look like the screen shot on the left. you should highlight "Microsoft" on the left hand side. Once "Microsoft" is selected, you should see a list of Network Protocols: IPX/SPX, TCP/IP, etc. You should select TCP/IP, which is at the bottom of the list. Once you have those two selected, you can click the "OK" button, the one outlined in green. (NOT the one all the way on the bottom, however I don't think it will let you anyway).
Once you click ok, your screen should look like the right hand picture. Depending on if you have a modem or not, you will see something like to the right, or you will have two (one will say modem, one will say whatever the name of your network card is). That is ok to have two now, we will "fix" it later. Left click on the TCP/IP text which contains the name of your network card, so it becomes highlighted in blue. Now click on "Properties" which is outlined in the green box.
You should then see a new menu appear, as seen in the screen shot to the left. Now comes the time when you have to get your IP address from one of the party hosts. (They will usually assign the IP address before the party begins, either on their web page or when you come into the party). If they have not given you the IP address or you lost it some how, you must ask one of the hosts if they can get you your "IP Address". Each person at the party will have their own, unique address, usually in the form of: 192.168.0.xxx (where xxx ranges from 000 to 255).
So now you must left click "Specify an IP Adress", and then click on the left hand column of "IP Address:". You can then type in your IP address there. A space or a period will move you to the next column if you are enterring a 2 digit number, such as the 0 in 192.168.0.xxx. The "Subnet Mask:" is enterred the same way as your IP Address, except this number will always be 255.255.255.0
Now you must click on "WINS Configuration" tab at the top of the menu, it is outlined in green. Once you have clicked this, your window should look like this. Make sure you "Disable WINS Resolution", which is also outlined in green. To do this, click in the white circle to the left of "Disable WINS Resolution", and a little black dot will appear there.
Ok, now you should click on the "Gateway" tab, which is outlined in green, and your window should appear as the on in the left hand picture does. Make sure there are no numbers in the "Installed Gateways" area. If you see any numbers on this page, click on them with the left mouse button and press the remove button. Do this for each number until none are left.
Execllent, you are almost done. Now you need to click on the "DNS Configuration" tab as shown in the right hand screen shot. It is outlined in green. Make sure you click "Disable DNS", which is outlined by the the second green box. Once you have that done, click the "OK" box on the bottom (again outlined in green).
Congradulations. You now have completed the most essential portion of your lan setup, however you are not done just yet. If you have a modem installed, you will need to highlight, by clicking on it with the left mouse button, any TCP/IP text that has the modem, and remove it like earlier. You should then just be left with one TCP/IP setting, which is for your network card.