Windows NT Systems Running RAS May Exhaust Available DHCP Leases

A RAS service configured to use dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) to allocate IP addresses for dial-up clients may acquire more IP address leases than needed, thereby depleting available addresses.

The leased addresses are indicated by a telephone icon in the Active Leases window of DHCP Manager.

This problem can occur when portable computer users on the network who have installed RAS and configured it for dialing out and receiving calls start their systems on and off the network.

During initialization, the RAS service acquires new leases because it fails to read information regarding previously acquired leases. The previously leased addresses, now orphaned, will only be returned to the pool of available addresses when their leases expire.

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Windows NT 4.0 or Windows NT Server 4.0, Terminal Server Edition. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in Windows NT 4.0 and Windows NT Server 4.0, Terminal Server Edition. This problem was first corrected in Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 4.0 and Windows NT Server 4.0, Terminal Server Edition Service Pack 4.