You can avoid the window pop-up by wiring a True constant to the run minimized input. I'm attaching a VI in LV7 that uses system exec to programtically set the IP Address, mask, and gateway. A coworker wrote this. It only works on Win2K and XP though.
I don't have any real good tips on searching the MS web site except doing a search of both
Support Home and
MSDN (Microsoft Developer Network).