IP Address trouble

My wife's laptop (HP-Windows XP) was used by our son at a land party. Now she can't get on the internet. I checked her IP address and it is different from my laptop (Dell-Windows XP). Also her Default Gateway # is different from her IP address. on my Dell the Default Gateway # is the same as my IP address without the 2 zeros on the end. Do I need to change her IP address to match mine? How would I do that? Is the Default Gateway # & IP address suppose to be the same?
All fixed! I got help at Yahoo Answers. Thanks!

Are you using a router or going straight through a cable/DSL modem?

In general the IP and Gateway are the same with the 1>100 exception.

You could try a System Restore to a point prior to the problem.

You could ask your son what he changed.

Most LAN parties require opening ports which if using a router might be the issue.

Have you tried:

ipconfig/release

ipconfig/renew

Glad it's working!

What was the solution?

This was the answer I got from "DAD" @ Yahoo Answers:
From "DAD"
your son probably just configured the ip settings according to the network used on the LAN (not land) Party manually.

Usually, routers used at home use DHCP which gives your computer an ip address automatically.

Just right click the little icon that shows the network connection in the task bar and select "status". Then click on properties.
Select the "TCP/IP" option in the list and click again on properties.
There select "automatically" on the ip and the DNS Server.
After clicking ok, check if it works.

And on the Gateway question.
You use a specific "subnet" on your netowork. That is a range of ip addresses used on the network. This subnet has a unique subnetmask for all clients on this network. The Gateway address is the device that connects your network to another, here the internet. So the Gateway address must be the same on all computers used in your network. Not to communicate with each other, but to connect to the internet.

Each IP Address can only be used once on your network. So if your client has for example 192.168.0.10, your other computer could use 192.168.0.11.

This answer resolved my problem! Thanks!

Thanks for letting us know.

It may help another along the way!