I have inherited our office network admin duties by accident and really don't know too much about what I'm doing. There's a network of about 12 computers and a Windows 2003 main server.

Having said that, I am using my limited knowledge and trying to establish a connection from my laptop to the rest of the office network.

I only need this connection to work for Internet access. I don't need to access files on the server necessarily - although that would be OK too.

But when I plug the network cable from my laptop to the network, there's always some sort of network address conflict and my laptop just sits there saying "acquiring network address" until it times out.

I have tried connecting directly from our main router and several 'sub' routers. Nothing seems to work. And I know I'm missing a major step (or four).

Can anyone point me to a good tutorial that could walk me through the steps of allowing temporary access like this?

I don't really want to set it up as a permanent "network computer" if I can help it.

Thanks for your advise.

You may have to connect to your companys domain 1st off that is if they have one.

2nd you may have to register that computer in the servers active directory users and computers

3rd check your DHCP settings see if your computer is leasing a IP

Learning in progress..........

It may be that static IPs are being used on your network since it is so small. If you can find the IP range of the network, you should be able to put a different IP (on the same range) on your laptop.

http://edusupport.110mb.com