diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 479da4902c..fc98ed336d 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -26,6 +26,9 @@ If everything goes well, you can access the following services at given location
 * Grafana Dashboards - http://localhost:3030
 * Prometheus - http://localhost:9091
 
+Discovery clients in this repo now default to `eureka.instance.prefer-ip-address=true` to avoid hostname resolution problems that can show up on some Windows and containerized setups.
+If you need the previous Eureka hostname-based registration behavior, set `EUREKA_INSTANCE_PREFER_IP_ADDRESS=false` before starting the services.
+
 You can tell Config Server to use your local Git repository by using `native` Spring profile and setting
 `GIT_REPO` environment variable, for example:
 `-Dspring.profiles.active=native -DGIT_REPO=/projects/spring-petclinic-microservices-config`
diff --git a/spring-petclinic-admin-server/src/main/resources/application.yml b/spring-petclinic-admin-server/src/main/resources/application.yml
index d745bb18b0..689982ea65 100644
--- a/spring-petclinic-admin-server/src/main/resources/application.yml
+++ b/spring-petclinic-admin-server/src/main/resources/application.yml
@@ -4,6 +4,10 @@ spring:
   config:
     import: optional:configserver:${CONFIG_SERVER_URL:http://localhost:8888/}
 
+eureka:
+  instance:
+    prefer-ip-address: ${EUREKA_INSTANCE_PREFER_IP_ADDRESS:true}
+
 
 ---
 spring:
diff --git a/spring-petclinic-api-gateway/src/main/resources/application.yml b/spring-petclinic-api-gateway/src/main/resources/application.yml
index fdc8c3e487..6a7b3d33cf 100644
--- a/spring-petclinic-api-gateway/src/main/resources/application.yml
+++ b/spring-petclinic-api-gateway/src/main/resources/application.yml
@@ -44,6 +44,10 @@ spring:
                 - StripPrefix=2
                 - CircuitBreaker=name=genaiCircuitBreaker,fallbackUri=/fallback
 
+eureka:
+  instance:
+    prefer-ip-address: ${EUREKA_INSTANCE_PREFER_IP_ADDRESS:true}
+
 ---
 spring:
   config:
diff --git a/spring-petclinic-customers-service/src/main/resources/application.yml b/spring-petclinic-customers-service/src/main/resources/application.yml
index 7c95adf788..187d1c2ed1 100644
--- a/spring-petclinic-customers-service/src/main/resources/application.yml
+++ b/spring-petclinic-customers-service/src/main/resources/application.yml
@@ -4,6 +4,10 @@ spring:
   config:
     import: optional:configserver:${CONFIG_SERVER_URL:http://localhost:8888/}
 
+eureka:
+  instance:
+    prefer-ip-address: ${EUREKA_INSTANCE_PREFER_IP_ADDRESS:true}
+
 
 ---
 spring:
diff --git a/spring-petclinic-genai-service/src/main/resources/application.yml b/spring-petclinic-genai-service/src/main/resources/application.yml
index 883713607a..55c5d005cb 100644
--- a/spring-petclinic-genai-service/src/main/resources/application.yml
+++ b/spring-petclinic-genai-service/src/main/resources/application.yml
@@ -37,6 +37,10 @@ logging:
           chat:
             client:
               advisor: DEBUG
+
+eureka:
+  instance:
+    prefer-ip-address: ${EUREKA_INSTANCE_PREFER_IP_ADDRESS:true}
 ---
 spring:
   config:
diff --git a/spring-petclinic-vets-service/src/main/resources/application.yml b/spring-petclinic-vets-service/src/main/resources/application.yml
index 983a015db8..a361bc5dd4 100644
--- a/spring-petclinic-vets-service/src/main/resources/application.yml
+++ b/spring-petclinic-vets-service/src/main/resources/application.yml
@@ -8,6 +8,10 @@ spring:
   profiles:
     active: production
 
+eureka:
+  instance:
+    prefer-ip-address: ${EUREKA_INSTANCE_PREFER_IP_ADDRESS:true}
+
 ---
 spring:
   config:
diff --git a/spring-petclinic-visits-service/src/main/resources/application.yml b/spring-petclinic-visits-service/src/main/resources/application.yml
index ada02194cf..05827be9b2 100644
--- a/spring-petclinic-visits-service/src/main/resources/application.yml
+++ b/spring-petclinic-visits-service/src/main/resources/application.yml
@@ -4,6 +4,10 @@ spring:
   config:
     import: optional:configserver:${CONFIG_SERVER_URL:http://localhost:8888/}
 
+eureka:
+  instance:
+    prefer-ip-address: ${EUREKA_INSTANCE_PREFER_IP_ADDRESS:true}
+
 
 ---
 spring: