I have a 16 ports hub and 4 computers (WinXP) connected to it, unfortunately only one of the computers can connect to the internet. The internet connection is a cable modem. Its attached to the first port of the hub. The computer that works is connected to the second port and it gets an IP address from the DHCP server. The rest of the PCs is attached to the third, the fourth and the fifth port of the hub. They can't connect to the internet because they get an IP address of 169.254.x.x. It doesn't matter if I hardcode the IP settings or use DHCP. The local network work though, but not connecting to the internet. I wonder, must I setup it differently? The computer that works has two Network devices. Should I instead build a bridge using these devices and get it to work as a router? Do I need a special application for that?

The easiest solution is to get a router and connect it to the cable modem and plug the computers into the router. The router will be the DHCP server and all computers will be able to connect to the internet. You can use ICS on the machine that has two network connections. But using a router is easier to setup and all machines has independent access to the internet.

Thanks for your response. Yes the easiest way would be to buy a router. But as I'm interested in getting this working using the equipment I've got, I will try to use the ICS solution. In this case, I guess I would have to connect the cable modem into one of the NICs on the main PC. Then connect the hub to the other NIC and connect all other computers to the hub. Assaign them local addresses (192.168.x.x) and share the internet connection of the main PC. Will that work?

In theory yes due to the main pc acting as a router. make sure you have your gateways pointing to the main pc.

Read up on ICS in the Windows Help file. Lots of useful information there. Yes, connect NIC#1 to your cable modem and NIC#2 to your hub, then connect the hub to your clients. You may need a crossover cable between the NIC and the hub: check the documentation. Run the ICS setup wizard on your "host PC" the networking wizard on the 3 clients to set them as part of an ICS network. You will need to CAREFULLY set up the XP firewall on the host and clients so they'll know they're part of an ICS network, otherwise the firewalls will block them from talking to each other.