Assigning "permanent" IP addresses?

[Moraga Mike]

I have a Netgear WNDR3700 (a year or so old) router with a WD MyBookLive NAS attached. I have a bunch of laptops and PCs that attach wirelessly and a Canon MX882 network printer. I am all Microsoft OS but I've got a mix of XP Pro, Vista 64-bit and Win7 machines. And sometimes our son comes home with his Mac (and no issues). One router, one NAS, one network printer, maybe 4 machines with an occasional guest.

Everything seems to work fine except one of my laptops (a Win7) complains that it finds a IP address conflict from time to time. It's basically when one of the OTHER laptops sleeps but then wakes up later when in returned to usage.

A couple of days ago I had to reboot my router. One of the laptops (an XP) barked that the MyBookLive address was invalid. It turns out upon reboot that it went from 192.168.1.104 to 192.168.1.105. It wasn't hard to redirect it but I'd rather have a "permanent" solution.

I am assuming static IP assignment would solve these issues. Right?

If so, how would I just assign static IP addresses to my various devices? Do I use the MAC addresses?

I just need to know the procedure and screen(s) on the Netgear admin function on the router. I'm relatively handy but I've never assigned IP addresses before. (I almost feel embarrassed to ask this question.)

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

[PrntRhd]

Your DHCP addresses start at 192.168.1.100 and probably go to 192.168.1.125 so I would choose an address outside that range and outside the gateway address zone, say 192.168.1.25 or even 192.168.1.170 as both are unlikely to conflict with anything.
The term most use for a non-DHCP address is a static address/reserved address.
Your NAS should be assigned a static address as well.

[Moraga Mike]

Where exactly do I specify such addresses? Thanks.

[LochLomonder]

Mike,

Before doing this, check to ensure you have the latest firmware downloaded on the router...

Log into your router, go to LAN Setup and then choose Address Reservation. You should be able to assign a static IP address for each device based upon its MAC address.

[PrntRhd]

Agree with LochLomonder, that is another way to accomplish the same thing.