Manual Default Gateway Does Not Override DHCP Lease

When Windows 95 is configured to be a DHCP client, TCP/IP communication to some remote network segments is sporadic or completely dysfunctional.

When you configure the TCP/IP protocol properties (in the Network Control Panel tool), you have manually entered an IP address in Installed Gateways (on the Gateway tab). The program Winipcfg.exe confirms that this manually configured default gateway is not being used. The DHCP-assigned default gateway is used instead of the one listed in the TCP/IP properties in the Network Control Panel tool.

You can run the program Route.exe from an MS-DOS command prompt (command window) to manually override the default gateway that was assigned in the DHCP lease. For example, if DHCP assigned a default gateway of 199.199.10.1, yet you need to override with 199.199.10.50, you would use the following commands:

1. View the routing table using the following command:

         c:>  ROUTE  print
   						

2. Your default gateway will show up at the top of the list:

        Net Address   Netmask   Gateway Addr     Interface     Metric
            0.0.0.0   0.0.0.0   199.199.10.1   199.199.10.69        1
   						

3. Delete the existing default gateway using the following command:

         c:>  ROUTE  delete  0.0.0.0
   						

4. Add your new default gateway using the following command:

         c:>  ROUTE  add  0.0.0.0  MASK  0.0.0.0  199.199.10.50
   						

5. Confirm the new default gateway you entered in the previous step:

        Net Address   Netmask   Gateway Addr     Interface     Metric
            0.0.0.0   0.0.0.0  199.199.10.50   199.199.10.69        1
   						

NOTE: The new gateway address will not be accepted if Windows 95 is unable to reach the gateway using the IP address and Subnet mask of the installed network card(s).

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Windows 95. We are researching this problem and will post new information here in the Microsoft Knowledge Base as it becomes available.