How to Automatically Change Your IP Address Every Time Windows Restarts Using IPNetShift

You’ve restarted your PC. You run ipconfig on the same IP. Again. 192.168.2.50, the exact same address it’s been for months. You try ipconfig /release again. Still 192.168.2.50.

This is one of the most common frustrations in home networking, and the reason it happens is not a bug. It’s actually your router doing exactly what it’s designed to do. In this guide, we’ll explain precisely why it happens and then show you how to fix it permanently using IPNetShift, a free tool we built at KentDevTools specifically for this problem.

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Why Your IP Address Stays the Same After Every Restart

Your local IP address is the one that looks like 192.168.1.x or 192.168.2.x is assigned by your router through a protocol called DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol). Every time your PC connects to your network, it broadcasts a request asking for an IP address, and your router responds with one.

Here’s the part most people don’t know: your router doesn’t assign IPs randomly. It maintains a lease table, essentially a list of every device it has seen indexed by MAC address.

A MAC address is a unique identifier built into every network adapter. Your Ethernet card has one. Your Wi-Fi card has one. They look like it, A4:C3:F0:85:AC:2D and they never change not on restart, not on network reconnect, not ever (unless you change them manually).

So when your PC restarts and reconnects to the router, the router looks up your MAC address in its table, finds that this device always gets 192.168.2.50, and assigns you exactly that again. ipconfig /renew is just sending a fresh DHCP request, but with the same MAC, so you get the same result.

ℹ The core insight The router assigns IPs based on who is asking, not when they’re asking. “Who” = MAC address. If the MAC doesn’t change, the IP won’t change. This is intentional; it keeps your home network stable. But if you want to override it, you need to change the MAC.

The Real Solution: MAC Address Rotation

The only reliable way to get your router to assign a new IP is to present a different MAC address on each connection. When the router sees a MAC it doesn’t recognize, it has no existing lease for it, so it assigns the next available IP from its pool, which is typically the next number in the sequence your pool is configured for.

This technique is called MAC address spoofing. Despite the name, there’s nothing sinister about it; it’s completely legal, widely supported by Windows, and used routinely by VPN software, enterprise network management tools, and privacy-focused applications. Windows exposes it through a standard registry value under the adapter’s driver key.

The challenge is that doing this manually writing to the registry, disabling and re-enabling the adapter, and running them ipconfig /renew in the right order every single restart is tedious and error-prone. That’s exactly what IPNetShift automates.

Introducing IPNetShift Free Auto IP Changer for Windows

IPNetShift is a free Windows tool built at KentDevTools that handles the entire MAC rotation + DHCP renewal process in about 10 seconds. It works on both Windows 10 and Windows 11, and with a single checkbox you can enable it to run silently every time Windows starts so your IP changes automatically on every boot without you ever opening the app.

What happens when you click “Change IP Now”

1

A new MAC address is generated

IPNetShift computes a new MAC using the locally administered prefix 02:AB:CD and either an incremented suffix (sequential mode) or a random 3-byte value (random mode).

2

MAC is written to Windows registry

The new MAC address (without colons) is written to the NetworkAddress value under HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E972...}\{adapter_subkey}.

3

The adapter is disabled then re-enabled

Your network adapter is disabled via the command line and then re-enabled after 2 seconds. This forces Windows to reload the new MAC from the registry into the driver.

4

DHCP lease is released and renewed

ipconfig /release drops the existing lease. ipconfig /renew sends a fresh DHCPDISCOVER broadcast. Your router sees the new MAC; the new device assigns the next free IP.

Sequential vs Random Mode

IPNetShift gives you two rotation modes depending on what you need:

Feature	Sequential Mode	Random Mode
IP order	.50 → .51 → .52 → .53	Any available IP, unpredictable
Predictability	Hey, do you know the next IP	Low random each time
Good for testing	Yes	Less suitable
Good for privacy	Moderate	Maximum
Recommended for most	Yes	Optional

For most users, especially those who want the clean .50 → .51 → .52 progression described at the start of this article, sequential mode is the right choice.

How to Install and Use IPNetShift

IPNetShift is a Python-based application that is lightweight, open, and easy to inspect. Here’s how to get it running:

1

Download and extract

Download ipnetshift.zip and extract it to a permanent location, like C:\IPNetShift\. Don’t leave it in your Downloads folder, or the auto-startup task path will break.

2

Install Python 3.8+ (free)

Download from python.org/downloads. During setup, check “Add Python to PATH.” Without this, the launcher can’t find Python.

3

Double-click “Run IPNetShift.bat”

The launcher auto-requests UAC elevation (click Yes), checks for Python, installs the Pillow image library silently on first run, then opens the app in about 5 seconds.

4

Select adapter, set mode, click Change IP

Pick Ethernet (recommended) or select Sequential, and click CHANGE IP NOW. Watch the log update in real time. Done in ~10 seconds.

Enabling auto-change on every Windows startup

This is where IPNetShift gets really useful. Tick the “Automatically rotate IP on every Windows startup” checkbox. IPNetShift creates a Windows Task Scheduler entry named IPNetShiftAutoRun that runs the app in silent mode (--silentflag) at every login: no window, no notification, no interaction required.

From that point forward, every time you restart your PC, your IP increments automatically. 192.168.2.50 today. 192.168.2.51 next boot. 192.168.2.52, the one after. Completely hands-free.

⚠ Extract to a permanent folder first The Task Scheduler task stores the full path to ipnetshift.py. If you move or delete the folder later, the task will fail silently. Always extract to a permanent location like C:\IPNetShift\ before enabling startup.

FAQ

Conclusion

The reason your local IP address never changes on restart has nothing to do with Windows being inflexible and everything to do with how DHCP was designed. Your router gives you the same IP because it remembers you by your MAC address, and that never changes on its own.

The fix is elegant: rotate the MAC address before each DHCP request. Your router sees a new device and assigns a new IP. IPNetShift handles the full sequence registry write, adapter reset, and DHCP renewal in about 10 seconds, and with the startup option, it does it silently every time you boot without you lifting a finger.

And it’s completely free: no account, no subscription, no ads.

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