ipconfig - Windows Command Line Utility

How and When to Use ipconfig in Windows

By
Bradley Mitchell
Bradley Mitchell
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  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • University of Illinois
An MIT graduate who brings years of technical experience to articles on SEO, computers, and wireless networking.
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Updated on December 2, 2020
Reviewed by
Chris Selph
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Reviewed by Chris Selph
Chris Selph is a CompTIA-certified technology and vocational IT teacher. He also serves as network & server administrator and performs computer maintenance and repair for numerous clients.
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In Windows, ipconfig is a console application designed to run from the Windows command prompt. This utility allows you to get the IP address information of a Windows computer. It also allows some control over your network adapters, IP addresses (DHCP-assigned specifically), even your DNS cache. Ipconfig replaced the older winipcfg utility.

Using ipconfig

From the command prompt, type ipconfig to run the utility with default options. The output of the default command contains the IP address, network mask, and gateway for all physical and virtual network adapters.

The ipconfig window.

The ipconfig command supports several command line options. The command 

ipconfig/?

displays the set of available options.

Ipconfig /all

This option displays the same IP addressing information for each adapter as the default option. Additionally, it displays DNS and WINS settings for each adapter as well as a whole host of additional information.

Ipconfig /release

This option terminates any active TCP/IP connections on all network adapters and releases those IP addresses for use by other applications. Ipconfig/release can be used with specific Windows connection names. In this case, the command affects only the specified connections, not all connections. The command accepts either full connection names or wildcard names. Examples: 

ipconfig /release "Local Area Connection 1"
ipconfig /release *Local*

Ipconfig /renew

This option re-establishes TCP/IP connections on all network adapters. As with the release option, ipconfig /renew takes an optional connection name specifier.

Both /renew and /release options only work on clients configured for dynamic (DHCP) addressing.

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