I think everything else is relatively well covered so I'll just handle 4 for you.

H:\>ipconfig /all

Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : Mycomputername
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . : something.local
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : something.local

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) PRO/1000 MT Network Connection
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-0D-56-99-06-F7
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.70.0.247
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.248.0.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 10.70.0.1
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.70.0.7
10.70.0.8

This is a printout of an ipconfig /all command... i'll explain it for ya...



Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : Mycomputername
The hostname is the name of your machine. If you're using a windows network (one with DNS) this can be used in place of an IP address for connecting to a computer

Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . : something.local
This is the DNS it normally would go on the end of my machine name there for a fully qualified domain name... well internal to my network anyways.

Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
I've never used either of these.

[WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS was replaced by DNS for Windows (post server 2000 networks) so you don't need to worry about this.

DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : something.local
This is what is appended after computer names and such as you're trying to find them in your network allowing you to connnect to a machine just by using it's computer name

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) PRO/1000 MT Network Connect
ion
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-0D-56-99-06-F7
This is your computer's MAC address. Theoretically your machine's NIC is the only one in the world with this. People can of course spoof this though. The first 6 numbers are vendor specific and the second 6 are unique to your machine for that vendor.

Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
Were you to be using DHCP this would be enabled. DHCP allows your machine to get an IP address assigned to it as it connects to a network so that you don't have to assign an IP address to each machine yourself. This is possibly the best thing to happen to administrators in the history of computing.

IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.70.0.247
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.240.0.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 10.70.0.1
I grouped these three together because without all three you cannot communicate within your network. The IP address is your logical address on the network. The Subnet mask is the number of bits that are used for your segment. This has to be right on your system, but it is essentially a number used by routers to know where things are going in a network (number of hosts per subnet and such). The default gateway is where your computer is going to be sending its traffic to if it cannot find an IP address on its subnet. This is really where your computer will send most of its traffic since you're probably not using IP addresses by hand.

DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.70.0.7
10.70.0.8
You need DNS servers if you want to communicate out to the internet. Well unless you can remember IP addresses.


This hasn't had much time for editing... feel free to correct or add for content.