A DHCP server issues IP addresses for machines on the local LAN. Allowing a
machine to lease an IP address from a DHCP greatly simplifies LAN management
unless there is a server behind a NAT router that needs to be exposed to the
public.
NAT is a technique used by most routers or routing software (ICS is one
such) to allow multiple machines to share a single IP address upstream of
the LAN.
File and Print sharing has nothing to do with either NAT or DHCP directly.
NAT and DHCP do have an affect on the scope of F&P sharing in the terms of
defining the local sub-net.
Hmmm. Where to go from here?
Glossing at an extremely high level:
F&P sharing must be bound to the NIC that's attached to the LAN. If a DHCP
server is employed, the DHCP server will define the local sub-net and
typically only those machines on the local sub-net can participate in F&P
sharing. Assuming, and we know what happens when the assuming begins, you
have a router and switch that's attached to your ISP on the WAN side and
attached to your four machines on the LAN side *and* assuming the router is
DHCP server capable and enabled to run as such then you're most of the way
home. NAT happens on the WAN side of the router and has no impact on the LAN
unless you need to expose a server as mentioned earlier. Again, assuming you
have F&P sharing bound to the NICs on each machine, then the only left is to
define network shares which includes directories and printers.
I'm going to stop at this point since it's easier to answer specific
questions at this juncture rather than go into generic details on how to
setup a peer network. On XP machines, running the networking wizard
automates quite a bit as long as you do not allow it to bridge NICs.
--
Walter Clayton - MS MVP(WinXP)
Associate Expert
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
http://www.dts-l.org