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Our broadband router has just been changed and our network which was on 172.18.2.xxx is now 192.168.9.xxx.

All is fine but I have one box which we used to RDP into and which has no screen mouse or kbd (because of the wiring in this room, it would be a real pain to organise this).

The machine in question has a fixed ip in the 172.18.2.xxx range and is networked (nobody knows the ip as we used the machine name). I cannot get to it by machine name but am wondering if there is an easy way to RDP to it by configuring some sort of network route?

Is that possible?

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  • The IP should be in your RDP client's history. Just click the drop down arrow next to "Computer".
    – Jason
    Apr 11, 2014 at 23:27

2 Answers 2

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I'm assuming that you want to RDP to it so that you can change it's ip address? If yes, then you can try this: Temporarily assign your workstation an ip address in the same 172.18.2.x range, then RDP to the machine, then change the ip address to match your new ip address range, then change your workstation ip address back to what it was.

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  • Absolutely correct and worked a treat. I love simple solutions!!!!
    – wingyip
    Apr 12, 2014 at 8:43
  • Glad to help...
    – joeqwerty
    Apr 12, 2014 at 15:25
  • When I try that, the router in between asks me to login to it but then tells me the connection has failed.
    – SDsolar
    Feb 22, 2017 at 2:53
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First things first: without the IP address, you are likely out of luck simply because that machine's name is no longer registered in DNS - you can ping the hostname 'til the cows come home and never get a peep out of it. You'll need to scan the entire subnet for live IPs in order to find it. And if the random IP you set your workstation to just happens to be the same as your remote machine, you could have a whole bunch of trouble!

Secondly, depending on your router and any switches involved in your network, you may still not be able to reach the remote machine even after changing the IP address on your workstation to match. Many routers (and some intelligent switches) will drop packets if they are addressed to a subnet that is not configured on an interface for the router; this is a security feature.

Thirdly, even if an IP scan works, it could take a very long time. I'm not saying don't try it - but be aware that the time it takes to find and download a subnet scanner you like and then let it ping every address in the entire 172.18.2.0 subnet could take a while.

What I recommend that you do is pull the box out of the closet, hook it up to a monitor, and configure it to use DHCP (note the MAC address of your network card). Then set up a DHCP reservation for the remote computer on your router. Being on DHCP will ensure that this never happens again, and the reservation will give you essentially the same functionality as a static IP.

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  • See joeqwerty's answer. Worked a treat.
    – wingyip
    Apr 12, 2014 at 8:44
  • @wingyip Glad it worked for ya :) though I have absolutely no clue how you managed to find its hostname without a DNS entry for it. You should still change it to DHCP with a reservation instead of a static IP address, otherwise you'll be doing this again the next time you replace your router.
    – Thomas
    Apr 12, 2014 at 14:03

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