WiFi Shield - Can't set IP Address

I was going to start a new topic asking this precise question. But I assume it would be better to add it to this existing thread.

I need my WiFi shield to use a fixed IP address on my network. I need to be able to set the shield's IP address, subnet and gateway prior to setting the SSID and password. The Ethernet shield allows for this directly in its .begin() function. I went through the WiFi library and can't find any way to do this.

I am sure I'm missing something as I can't imagine any reason why the Ethernet shield would be able to create a network client connection and the WiFi shield would not...

Any ideas anyone?

Thanks.