Wims, thanks for the clarification on it being XP and not 7. That's the piece I wasn't remembering.
Zabache, depending on how you use the files, if they are just used internally and no one would try to browse through them manually, you can name it something like ip_.ini, but treat it like ip.ini internally. Or, if you want users to look for it manually, you could just put a space in there... "ip .ini". Unless they show extensions, they probably won't notice something like that. Just some ideas.