Have you ever called up technical support after experiencing some problem with your computer and felt embarrassed when they ask for your IP address? Most people don’t even know what an IP address is let alone the IP address of their computer. Knowing the IP address of your computer is important and can come in handy in a number of situations such as when you need technical support and the service representative asks you to provide the IP address. Basically, the IP address is a unique 15-character address that identifies your computer. No two computers have the same IP address and this makes locating a particular computer on the network easy. That is why the technical representative needs you to know your IP address. Obviously, not everyone has a fantastic memory or can remember a string of 15 characters. So how does one find out the IP address of their computer?
There are different ways of finding out the IP address of your computer depending on what operating system you use. If you are a Mac user, then the procedure for finding your IP address is a little different than for a Windows user.
For Mac Users
If you have Mac installed on your system, you first need to open the Terminal program and type
ifconfig and press Enter.
When the system flashes the prompt. All Macintosh computers come with the Terminal program preinstalled. You can access it by going to Applications and locating in in the Utilities folder. As soon as you enter ifconfig the IP address will be displayed on the screen.
For Windows Users
If you use a traditional computer, then chances are high that you have Microsoft Windows installed as the operating system. To find out the IP address of your computer with a Windows operating system, you need to go to the command prompt.
This can simply be done by going to the Start Menu and then clock on Run. In the box that appears, type
cmd and press Enter as shown below
The command prompt opens up in the form of a separate window with a black background. If you have Windows 8 installed, click the Windows icon in the lower left corner and type cmd in the search box. When prompted to enter a command, simply type
ipconfig and press Enter.
The IP address will be displayed on the window.
For Linux Users
Many users still prefer using the Linux operating system mainly due to its open source nature and simplicity of use. Finding the IP address of your computer on a Linux operating system is the easiest of all. All you need to do is type
ipconfig on the screen and press Enter.
The IP address will be displayed on the screen. You do not need to go to a separate application to do this. This method works regardless of the specific version of Linux that you have installed on your system.
Once you have the IP address of your computer, you can read it out to the technical support representative and they will guide you through the remaining steps of troubleshooting and fixing the problem with your computer.
Leave a Reply