#WINDOW MEDIA CENTER ICON HOW TO#
#WINDOW MEDIA CENTER ICON WINDOWS 8#
#WINDOW MEDIA CENTER ICON WINDOWS 7#
#WINDOW MEDIA CENTER ICON MAC#
#WINDOW MEDIA CENTER ICON WINDOWS#

Only shared folders can be viewed, but youвЂ™d be surprised how folders can become shared without your knowledge. There are so many times when guests come over to my house, connect to the network and then could possibly browse my system. I always turn this to Off even on private networks unless I need to use it in a specific situation.

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What this means in practice is that when you open Windows Explorer, you might see the name of another computer connected to your network under Network Locations.ДЇile and Printer Sharing вЂ“ This setting will allow others to access shared folders and printers on your computer. Network Discovery вЂ“ This setting is turned on for private networks by default and it means that your computer can be seen by other computers and vice versa. Basically, itвЂ™s the same settings as in Windows 7, but just split up more logically.

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In Windows 8 and 10, you have three profiles: Private, Guest or Public and All Networks. All the settings are the same and repeated under each profile. Only one profile can be active at a time. In Windows 7, you have two profiles: Home or Work and Public. The advanced sharing settings dialog is main place for managing how your computer communicates with the rest of the network.

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Lastly, if you click on Details, you can get more info about the current network like the Default Gateway ( router IP address), MAC address, and computer IP address. This is really useful if you have forgotten the WiFi password, but still have a computer that is connected to the network. You can also disable the connection and diagnose the connection if there is a problem.ДЇor WiFi networks, this screen is useful because you can click on Wireless Properties and then click on the Security tab and view the WiFi password. Here you can see how long you have been connected, the signal quality for WiFi networks, the network speed, etc. Next to Connections, you can click on the name of the WiFi or Ethernet network to bring up the status info dialog for the current connection. I talk more about it in the Advanced Sharing Settings section below. A HomeGroup allows you to easily share files, printers and more between computers. Next to HomeGroup, youвЂ™ll see a link that says Available to join or Ready to createВ depending on whether a HomeGroup already exists on the network or not.

To the right of the network name and network type, youвЂ™ll see HomeGroup and Connections. So what exactly does switching do? Well, you can see all of the different sharing settings when you click on the Change advanced sharing settings link, which I explain in detail in the next section below.

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You can read my post on how to switch between public and private for the currently connected network.

Change the network type to Public and no one will be able to discover your computer on the network. This can be useful, for example, if you are visiting someone and you want to make sure no one can access any data on your computer while you are connected to their network. You can also manually change the network type to Public or Private depending on what kind of privacy you want. If you choose no, it will make the network public. Sometimes, Windows will ask you if you want to enable sharing or find devices once you connect to a network and if you say yes, it will make the network private. Windows will normally try to figure this out for you automatically so that when you connect to a public WiFi network, it will use the Public profileВ and not the private one. This means others can find your computer on the network, possibly access shared folders, stream media from your computer, etc. This is very important because when you are connected to a private or home network, there are a lot of sharing settings that are set by default to be trusting. In the above examples, one has Home network listed and the other has Private network listed. The first thing to understand about this info is the network type, which is listed directly below the name of the network. In Windows 8 and Windows 10, they cleaned up the interface by getting rid of a couple of items and combining other items.ДЄt the top, youвЂ™ll see the active network or networks, the network type, the type of access, HomeGroup info and the connection info.

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Windows 7 has a little bit more information and also a couple of more options. The first thing youвЂ™ll see when you open the Network and Sharing Center is your current connection to the network and to the Internet. If you are in icon view, just click directly on Network and Sharing Center. In the Control Panel, you can click on the Network and Internet category and then click on Network and Sharing Center.

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