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.

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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?