i am concerned. Is there concern when an individual access his network connection and checks the status, ..?

Question

and it says something to the effect that you are assigned to a DHCP? My physical address is a mac adress, and my ip address is under a dhcp server? Is that the way that the network connection status is supposed to be set on a xp computer? What the heck is a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, why does it exsist?

Answer 1

DHCP servers exists so that every computer on the network doesnt have to be assigned an IP address by the user. when you connect your computer to a network, the dhcp server (normally its your router) assigns an IP to your computer. if you assign your computer a static (non-changing) IP, it no longer uses the DHCP server to be "served" an IP.

Answer 2

DHCP is a protocol designed to manage IP address changes. You're internet service provider (like EarthLink, RoadRunner, etc.) probably changes the IP addresses around every once and a while, and a DHCP allows the computer not to flip out when that happens. It's perfectly normal, and applies to all computers, not just an XP computer. The only reason you wouldn't have a DHCP is if you were in a large computer lab environment where they had bought static IP addresses that never change. I can almost guarantee that if you're asking this question, you have not done that, and nor do you need to. Don't worry, it's all groovy.