Getting different IP Address on Windows XP and Linux running on VMWare

[Magan]

Before asking question i must say that i am a Newbie in networking and hence need help from you guys here. Am having a Windows XP computer at my home. Recently i installed Linux on VMWare to get some experience of this OS as well. Everything working great. But am confused with one thing. I noticed that am getting different IP Address on my XP and LINUX. How is that so ?

[Harold Elwin]

The computer will show different IP address as running the other OS in VMware which is a Virtual Machine. VMware is software used to load another Operating System in a computer without unloading the current Operating System used by the user. VMware creates a dummy Hardware platform for other Operating System to get Load into it which is known as Virtual Machine .It is considered as another computer by the OS and by having same IP addresses will get IP Conflict error.

The different IPs allows you to route/firewall properly and make the distinction between the two computers and send the information to the correct computer. The IP address which we see is actually the internal IP address. The internal IP is used by the router only .Internal IP is used by router to give access to the internet. The actual IP address of the computer is one provided by the ISP (Internet Service Provider).