Network - Win7 and WinXP - Internet Exposure?

Have just set up a Win7 pc on my home network (CAT5) and I notice that on my wife's WinXP pc in 'My Network Places' that my Win7 pc (and also another WinXP pc) show under 'Network Location' as 'The Internet'.

Have I managed to share my pc with the whole internet community?

Looks like I had better get my TFH on and perhaps also on our pc's?

Cheers!

As a Mac user who doesn't have much idea about how Windows' "My Network Places" makes it's decisions, could they be seeing it over IPv6?

I know your ISP supports IPv6 (don't know about your router), and as there's no NAT it effectively is part of the internet.

Edited by billford (Sat 25-May-13 21:11:02)

Can you post a screenshot?

But, I am 99% sure you are fine......

My router can support IPv6 but it is not enabled. My home network which includes items other than pc's is running IPv4. In fact those items probably would not support IPv6.

I think that I am being over cautious, but.....

Cheers!

You might find this http://scottiestech.info/2009/09/25/windows-7-file-s... interesting...might be relevant

I wouldn't mind seeing a screenshot, but I think what you are seeing is the diagram that shows your computer connected to a router which is in turn connected to the internet, which is of course true, and not a cause for concern.

Screenshot not too easy at the moment, but if you have an WinXP pc, go to 'My Network Places' and in 'View' choose 'Details'.

Basically, those folders which are shared on the WinXP pc are shown as having a 'Network Location' of 'Local Network' even though they are on that pc, whilst folders which are shared elsewhere (ie on my pother pc's) are shown as having a 'Network Location' of 'The Internet'.

I would have thought that Local Network would have included the whole of my home network, but then again MS Speak likely uses a different terminology...

I had to mess around to get the Win& pc to share so that I could see it on my two XP pc's, but those have been happily on the network for some time.

I am likely being over cautious, but.............

Cheers!

Terms sound like UPnP icons that show up.

Screenshot is best

Internet Gateway connection sometimes appears on XP when uPnP ON on router.

In reply to a post by Ancient_Mariner:

Screenshot not too easy at the moment, but if you have an WinXP pc, go to 'My Network Places' and in 'View' choose 'Details'....

This is what it should look like. I never add anything as I prefer to browse for whatever shares or use UNC to get there.

Sorry for the delay, I managed to get something in my eye which then scratched it, so now have gloopy ointment in my right eye and can hardly see a thing.

The screen shots can be seen at www.ancient-mariner.co.uk/public


Cheers!

Post deleted by XRaySpeX

On the XP waht does Network Connections say? Is there a Internet Gateway as well as the usual Ethernet or Wireless connection?

I Never use My Network Places so dont know what that says.

Edited by XRaySpeX (Tue 28-May-13 00:18:57)

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8258/8868290801_a412d2... - screenshot from XP machine: XP is "desktop", "vostro" is a Dell Win7 machine, "f" and "j" are storage drives and ftp is included also.

That wasnt what I asked, but are you saynig that "The Internet" location, which OP is querying, is quite normal?

I think it depends on the "Arrange Icons by" selection - normally I have it on "Computer" rather than "Network Location" and then there is no mention of "Internet" on the window...

In reply to a post by 4M2:

normally I have it on "Computer" rather than "Network Location" and then there is no mention of "Internet" on the window...

There would be if you had it on Details as per OP.

No on my XP machine, View > Details > Arrange Icons by > Computer still no mention of "The Internet" but with View > Details > Arrange Icons by > Network Location the "places" are grouped under "The Internet".

In reply to a post by 4M2:

No on my XP machine, View > Details > Arrange Icons by > Computer still no mention of "The Internet

Surely using Details, The Internet appears under the column Network Location however you arange them unless you suppress that column?

Yes you are correct but I was referring to group headings:

View > Details > Arrange Icons by > Computer - "places" appear under a column headed "Computer" and a column headed "Network Location" below which is "Internet" for all items without an overall group heading.

View > Details > Arrange Icons by > Network Location - "places" also appear under a column headed "Computer" and a column headed Network Location below which is "Internet" for all items but in this instance the group is headed by "The Internet".

BTW. View > List never shows a group heading of "The Internet" nor any headed columns - this is shown in the OP's screenshot http://www.ancient-mariner.co.uk/public/XP%20View%20...

Edited by 4M2 (Tue 28-May-13 23:03:22)

But I thought OP is concerned about "The Internet" appearing under column "Network Location" in the View Details window as in http://www.ancient-mariner.co.uk/public/XP%20View%20...

Edited by XRaySpeX (Wed 29-May-13 09:06:59)

Yes I can understand the OP's concern about the appearance of "The Internet" under the column "Network Location" because the XP machine, "This Computer", is given as "Local network" and one might get the impression that all the other "Computers" are perhaps insecure and open to the internet.

I believe http://www.ancient-mariner.co.uk/public/XP%20View%20... is View > Details > Arrange Icons by > Network Location, but it does not have the group heading "The Internet". On my XP machine I do get a group heading of "The Internet" from that view probably because all "Computers", including the XP machine, are network located on "The Internet".

Setting up the "Work Group" from the Win7 machine involved booting the XP 32bit machine in safe mode and resetting file sharing options so that I could write, rename and delete files in the XP shared documents folder and on the storage drive from the Win7 machine. Also, for security, only public/shared directories are shown and the contained files can be read from the LAN. The end result was that all "Computers" are network located on "The Internet" unlike the OP whose XP machine, only, is on the "Local Network".

In reply to a post by 4M2:

.I believe http://www.ancient-mariner.co.uk/public/XP%20View%20... is View > Details > Arrange Icons by > Network Location, but it does not have the group heading "The Internet". On my XP machine I do get a group heading of "The Internet" from that view probably because all "Computers", including the XP machine, are network located on "The Internet"..

That´s cuz you have "Show in Groups" ON but OP doesn´t! I don´t think OP is talking about those headings but more about the "Network Location" column, tho´, of course, they are connected. Perhaps it would be clearer if you were to post your equiv. to OP´s http://www.ancient-mariner.co.uk/public/XP%20View%20... (suitably redacted)?

Is it right that all your "Network Places" are shown on XP as network located on "The Internet"?

Edited by XRaySpeX (Wed 29-May-13 14:40:12)

In terms of Network Locations and the category / group-by views, "Internet" merely means a network or network adapter having Internet access - a gateway to the Internet. It is not an indication of whether you are sharing anything with the Internet.

If it says "Local Network" only this usually merely means a network or network adapter with no gateway configured.
With more recent versions of Windows it also says this if certain DNS lookups and web requests to specific MS-controlled DNS server and website are being blocked. Windows uses this to determine what to say in Network and Sharing Center and does a balloon pop-up if it thinks you need to log onto a captive portal.

-----

To do File and Print sharing with the Internet, one would have to change the scope of the Windows built-in firewall rule for "File and Print Sharing" from the default "Local subnet only" to the Internet / anywhere, but also open a port in your router firewall, inbound towards 445/tcp as a minimum.

In other words, since we first moved from dial-up modems (where File and Print Sharing could be found enabled on any new dial-up connection unless you unticked it, and there was no firewall on the modeml) to the situation where there is a firewall on both the router and XP SP2 or higher, it is pretty hard to do by accident.

Note that one still needs to be aware if File and Print Sharing is enabled on a wireless interface if connecting to an unsecured or untrusted access point.

Edited by prlzx (Wed 29-May-13 15:36:03)

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

That´s cuz you have "Show in Groups" ON but OP doesn´t! I don´t think OP is talking about those headings but more about the "Network Location" column, tho´, of course, they are connected. Perhaps it would be clearer if you were to post your equiv. to OP´s http://www.ancient-mariner.co.uk/public/XP%20View%20... (suitably redacted)?

Is it right that all your "Network Places" are shown on XP as network located on "The Internet"?

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7424/8879419152_c5480e... - and yes I do indeed have "Show in Groups" ON

Edit: BTW. Documents on Desktop refers to the XP Shared Documents folder only.

Edited by 4M2 (Wed 29-May-13 16:29:14)

In reply to a post by prlzx:

In terms of Network Locations and the category / group-by views, "Internet" merely means a network or network adapter having Internet access - a gateway to the Internet..

What makes a network have or have not a gateway to the Internet? Is it something to do with having an "Internet Gateway" Network Connection present on a PC? Why is an "Internet Gateway" necessary when it works seemingly equally well without one?

As you also have "the Internet" Network Locations on XP as well as the OP it would seem that the OP has nothing to be concerned about.

Do you have an "Internet Gateway" present in your Network Connections on XP? Do you have UPnP ON on your router?

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

As you also have "the Internet" Network Locations on XP as well as the OP it would seem that the OP has nothing to be concerned about.

Do you have an "Internet Gateway" present in your Network Connections on XP? Do you have UPnP ON on your router?

Well when I first linked up the Win7 machine to the LAN I was rather concerned about the accessibility to files on the Win7 machine from XP - that was a Win7 "Work Group" set up - so I made some changes to the security settings on the Win7 machine allowing only "Public" directories to be seen. This may not of course be a concern for the OP...

No "Internet Gateway" is not present in my XP Network Connections folder, only "Local Area Connection" which is an Intel 10/100 Network Connection (actually I seem to remember that when setting up the "Work Group" if "Internet Gateway" appeared on the XP machine that was an indication that the LAN was not working correctly.) And yes I do have UPnP enabled on the TG585 v7 router.

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

In reply to a post by prlzx:

In terms of Network Locations and the category / group-by views, "Internet" merely means a network or network adapter having Internet access - a gateway to the Internet..

What makes a network have or have not a gateway to the Internet? Is it something to do with having an "Internet Gateway" Network Connection present on a PC? Why is an "Internet Gateway" necessary when it works seemingly equally well without one?

It doesn't matter to Windows whether or not a UPnP icon for "Internet Gateway Device" is present. In most cases all it does is automatically provides the URL for connecting to the router's admin UI. Oh and sometimes it will gather traffic stats on the property sheet and allow you to connect or disconnect the internet from that icon.

I mean merely whether a given network has a route to the internet (is configured with a default router or has picked up one from DHCP). This is all Windows means when classifying the Network Location grouping / category types for Internet or Local only.

So if you connect two or more computers together on a standalone / isolated network but without a gateway (say just using an ethernet cable to transfer files) that will be classified as Local Network Only. XP usually does a yellow popup if you use auto- link-local addresses - as if this is a fault - when of course it is a perfectly valid setup if that is all you intended.

Some people are troubled by the misleading popup and configure a none-existent gateway address in network settings, which then causes routing problems (particularly if it is say a laptop and the real internet connection is actually on say the Wi-Fi adapter).

Or security researchers may have quite large private networks which are never to be attached to the wider internet - if it has a flat topology it also won't have a gateway / default router either (even if it uses a DHCP server to manage settings). For example if they are modelling the spread of viruses on a closed system (they can introduce it to the system by sneakernet). But that stuff is now easier to do in VMs.

Edited by prlzx (Thu 30-May-13 01:22:21)

Can´t say I understood much of that.

All I wanted to know was how it is that some ordinary setups produce an Internet Gateway Network Connection (on XP) and some don´t? Is it purerly a function of the router used?

In an idertical network, XP + Vista, using 2 diff routers both with UPnP ON, the 1st router resulted in an Internet Gateway on the XP and the 2nd router didn´t. With the Internet Gateway present on XP caused frequent connection problems on the Vista. When UPnP was switched OFF on the 1st router the Internet Gateway disppeared from the XP and the connection issues went away. Yet the 2nd router with UPnP ON never ever produced an Internet Gateway. Can you explain that?

UPnP doesn't require that different devices behave exactly the same or advertise the same features to the network. There are a wide range of things that make up the standard as UPnP covers a much wider range of devices than just routers, and so many features will be optional.

One of the common features is a way to automatically provide a URL to access or administer a network device, be it a router, IP camera, media server etc.

So yes with different routers it''s normal to have variation on whether you get an Internet Gateway Device icon or not, including even the order in which UPnP is turned on (Windows first or router first).

This is partly because the UPnP advertising is periodic and some routers let you change the interval or will have different default intervals, so the icon doesn't appear immediately anyway, especially if Windows just happened to miss the last advertisement.

E.g. I had a Netgear DG834G and with UPnP on the interval was set to 15 minutes. But I turned it off as it allowed any software on any computer on the LAN to open incoming port forwarding on demand which I did not need. Though some gamers may appreciate precisely that feature.

Note that the port forwarding was allowed irrespective of whether the gateway device icon was shown or not. UPnP can be turned off in Windows which affects only the OS Control Panel / Network Connections stuff, whereas either way any software such as games can each decide for themselves whether to send UPnP commands to the router if UPnP is turned on there.

But I feel we are getting bogged down - this icon is pretty much a cosmetic thing, having nothing to do with whether the router doing its real job. It is a fancy shortcut, that may or may not appear automatically, and may or may not feature brief statistics, but otherwise of no real importance.

I'd suggest MS added it aimed towards users coming from having the dial-up networking icons (allowing them to monitor their modem connection status) and hence provide something reassuringly familiar after upgrading to broadband (ADSL/cable) routers.

---

Similarly with the question of how Windows groups network connections, network cards, and other computers in lists of network devices. It has no real bearing on security how it chooses to classify things.

The OP was concerned about exposure to the internet and the main thing that matters is what rules are being applied by the Windows firewall and then the router firewall, rather than the group name it happens to appear under.

Regarding XP it should be on SP3 and preparations in place move off it before updates stop, or virtualise it and then isolate it from other devices.

Edited by prlzx (Thu 30-May-13 22:02:35)

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

In an idertical network, XP + Vista, using 2 diff routers both with UPnP ON, the 1st router resulted in an Internet Gateway on the XP and the 2nd router didn´t. With the Internet Gateway present on XP caused frequent connection problems on the Vista. When UPnP was switched OFF on the 1st router the Internet Gateway disppeared from the XP and the connection issues went away. Yet the 2nd router with UPnP ON never ever produced an Internet Gateway.

That sort of thing was happening to me with XP and Win7 - ended up with no Internet Gateway showing on XP and UPnP enabled on the TG585 v7 router for best results

In reply to a post by prlzx:

this icon is pretty much a cosmetic thing, having nothing to do with whether the router doing its real job.

It´s more than just cosmetic (& more than just an icon) when its very presence in a network causes the network to misbehave.

As I explained, it is not the presence or absence of the icon that causes the network to misbehave.

It is not the presence or absence of the icon that determines whether applications are able to control the router firewall.

Inappropriate network settings do cause a network to misbehave, whether on router, computer or something else.

But the icon itself is only a shortcut.

Edited by prlzx (Sat 01-Jun-13 00:05:53)

In reply to a post by prlzx:

As I explained, it is not the presence or absence of the icon that causes the network to misbehave.

Of course it is! The absence of an Internet Gateway (called by you an "icon" and seemingly triggered by uPnP) causes the network to behave impeccibly, while its presence causes problems in some cases. QED!

Inappropriate network settings do cause a network to misbehave, whether on router, computer or something else.

So you are blaming the user for plugging in a router and relying on its default settings? BTW: The router in question is a Netgear DG834GT, similar to the 1 you mentioned.

You also explained, I think, that uPnP was very spasmodic and variable in its implementations with it someimes generating an Internet Gateway and sometimes not within minutes. Not a very robust standard!

EDIT I am talking only about a simple 2 or 3 PC network and am not aware of trying to control router firewall or getting URLs but you are confusing this matter and myself by introducing such exotica.

Edited by XRaySpeX (Sat 01-Jun-13 22:15:10)

The reason I don't need UPnP turned on on my router is because I understand networks and firewalls well enough to configure the rules and settings myself.

That is not for me to say no-one else should use it ever.

I've explained the basics behind the part of it that relates to routers and Windows but that is only one aspect.

This is now tangential to the original post and has nothing to do with whether their computers are being desctibed as "Internet" or "Local Network".
And I'll repeat my repsonse to the OP that is very unlikely their Windows Network is sharing onto the Internet by accident as it requires specific changes both in Windows and the router.

Regarding the IGD icon you can read about that at IGDDC but in brief you can see it was was related to controlling a gatway from another computer, where gateway referred to the internet connection from a home router or Internet Connetion Sharing on another Windows PC.

The real point to take away from that is, even if you turn off / uninstall this discovery feature in Windows, hence getting rid of the shortcut, but
if you leave UPnP turned on at the router and that setting allows firewall control,
that is the feature allows capable devices and software on the network to control the router firewall. This is the case regardless, including if you have no Windows computers on the network.

The above is precisely what I meant by the icon not being the cause. It is merely how Windows XP choses to represent a shortcut to some optional services the router provides.

To avoid further duplication here anyone still curious can easily find more on what UPnP is about..

Personally I find the media discovery and sharing facilities of UPnP and DLNA more useful than the networking elements.

Edited by prlzx (Sun 02-Jun-13 01:22:37)

A few things that I would like to add is that the LAN is portrayed in an easier to understand form on a Win7 machine: in graphic representations the router (in my case a TG585 v7 with UPnP enabled) is the "Gateway" and other devices are shown on the network map once the LAN is setup correctly; all computers on the LAN have unrestricted access to the router's GUI and settings; also for a Work Group setup on Win7 I had to have "discovery" turned on