Windows clients support a feature known as automatic private IP addressing (apipa), which is a feature that provides that, when a windows client boots up and cannot contact a DHCP server, it will configure itself automatically with a 169.254.x.y address. If there is something wrong with the dhcp server and all the systems on the network cannot obtain an address from the DHCP server, the clients will all assign themselves an address within the 169.254 address range and then be able to communicate with one another. apipa does not assign a default gateway, so you will be unable to access resources on a remote network and the internetbut you can still communicate with systems on your network. When troubleshooting to find out why a machine cannot communicate on the network, watch for systems that have the 169.254.x.y address range because it means they could not find a dhcp server.
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