Win 8 no DHCP / 7.x.x.x address?

[bs27975]

I am trying TV for the first time. All I'm interested in is the VPN - all the other functionality I have via other utilities I'm used to, such as VNC, RDP, filesharing, ssh, and the like.

My first install was to my personal win 7 laptop. All well enough, as far as I've gotten so far with TV. e.g. Install, 7.x.x.x address, try a VPN.

My next install was to the laptop where I volunteer, win 8.1. Doing the same things, and the TV adapter does not get a 7.x.x.x address, staying with a 169.254/16 address.

Yet at vpn connection, the ip addresses are shown in the TV box.

What should I be looking for as to why the local win 8.1 adapter is not getting an address?

Do the 7/8 addresses ever change? (I could assign the address in the adapter settings.)

TIA