Change adapter's location (windows 7)
Hello, I've got another networking trouble with win7. My topology: LAN1 - ethernet, comes from ISP with local network. 172.25.24.30/254, gateway 172.25.24.1 LAN2 - home switch, 192.168.0.1/24, no gateway LAN3 - backup NAS, 192.168.1.1/24, no gateway VPN1 - Internet, "dialup" PPTP established via LAN1. Windows arranges it in two groups - Network 1 - LAN1. Unidentified network - LAN2,LAN3,VPN1. It allows only to change location/name/icon for Network 1. What I want in the end - Network 1 - LAN1 - Public Network 2 - LAN2 and LAN3 - Private Unidentified Network - VPN1 - Public How do I do this? First problem is splitting LAN2 and LAN3 from Unidentified networks to separate networks, I do not see any way to do this. My ultimate wish is to turn on network discovery and homegroup on LAN2 and LAN3 without enabling it on other two external interfaces. OS is Windows 7 x64 Professional //update My god, after reading a lot of online docs and forums I found that Win7 sorts adapters based on gateway settings. If there's no gateway - it will always see it as a unidentified network. Further surfing revealed that it identified gateways by MAC adress (so, setting unavailable ip would not work). Experiment time. arp -s 192.168.1.254 00-aa-00-62-c6-0a Now I've got a ghost device on network. Change settings for LAN2 to 192.168.1.1/24, gw 192.168.1.254. Voila! It asks about location for that network. So far (no reboot yet) I've got everything working on a test machine. Pinging other subnets works fine so far. Probably it will not survive reboot, I will try adding arp entry through task sheduler later. //update2 netsh interface ip add neighbors "Network Adapter Name" "192.168.1.254" "00-aa-00-62-c6-09" Adding this command to sheduler (run on startup) seems to work fine. After reboot and login network keeps it's location and name (the ones I set before reboot - private and some random name). p.s. question is not closed, this is only my experiments...
August 4th, 2011 1:40am

Hi, You can also use Group Policy to force certain settings. For example you can set unidentified networks to get the Private Profile by default. For more information, please access the following link. http://blogs.technet.com/b/networking/archive/2010/09/08/network-location-awareness-nla-and-how-it-relates-to-windows-firewall-profiles.aspx Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.
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August 8th, 2011 2:45am

Hi, You can also use Group Policy to force certain settings. For example you can set unidentified networks to get the Private Profile by default. For more information, please access the following link. http://blogs.technet.com/b/networking/archive/2010/09/08/network-location-awareness-nla-and-how-it-relates-to-windows-firewall-profiles.aspx Please remember to click “Mark as Answer” on the post that helps you, and to click “Unmark as Answer” if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread. ” I am sorry to ask it... did you really read my post? Or only it's title? Or did I write it too complex and emotionally to be understandable? What I want is to set a specific network type for specific NIC. I do not want all my networks to be Private, only specific internal ones. External NIC should be Public. Correct me if I am wrong... The problem, as I see it, is windows7's policy to detect and identify networks based on their gateway's MAC addresses. Not by adapter's name nor by some hardware ID. That makes it impossible to create complex configurations wih two or more ethernet cards without manually editing IP scopes in adv. firewall configuration. And that's what I am trying to avoid - entering all my ip ranges into each of 20-30 rules manually. I would prefer to manage it by network location types... If what I want is impossible I guess I'll have to think about linux. I do not run any exclusive-to-windows programs anyway.
August 9th, 2011 2:40pm

Hi, I have read all your words. The NLA indentify a Network location via gataway and so on. About the characteristics that are used to identify a network, please access the link I mentioned above. Also, when you use Group Policy to configurate a Network type, you may also choose the other location type so that the different firewall profile will be used. But, please remember that Windows List service cannot store this kind of network location.Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.
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August 10th, 2011 5:47am

Hi, I have read all your words. The NLA indentify a Network location via gataway and so on. About the characteristics that are used to identify a network, please access the link I mentioned above. Also, when you use Group Policy to configurate a Network type, you may also choose the other location type so that the different firewall profile will be used. But, please remember that Windows List service cannot store this kind of network location. Please remember to click “Mark as Answer” on the post that helps you, and to click “Unmark as Answer” if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread. ” Half of that document doesn't apply to my networks, another half is 'how windows detects', and I want rather 'how to override windows selection'. So... returning to my first post and cutting a lot of emotional spam... Just a simple specific question - what do I have to change (registry/nic settings/etc) to have this configuration in win7? ethernet adapter 'lan1' - 192.168.0.1/24, no gateway, set as private ethernet adapter 'lan2' - 192.168.1.1/24, no gateway, set as private ethernet adapter 'lanext' - 172.25.24.30/24, no gateway, set as public p.s. Yes, there are no gateways, all other subnets are routed through vpn connection
August 10th, 2011 8:48am

Hi, Please use Group Policy to assign a type for these unidentified network, then modify them maually to the type you want to set.Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.
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August 10th, 2011 9:33am

Hi, Please use Group Policy to assign a type for these unidentified network, then modify them maually to the type you want to set. Please remember to click “Mark as Answer” on the post that helps you, and to click “Unmark as Answer” if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread. ” Please please provide instructions for example - how to split one adapter from "unidentified networks"? Currently all my adapters are listed under "Unidentified". Group policy (Computer-Windows-Security-Network List) allows me to change this WHOLE location (all my adapters) to private/public. It does not allow me to change for one specific stand-alone adapter without affecting others. p.s. Just to you could fully understand the situation... All adapters are listed under one Network "Unidentified", and the problem is that I cannot see a way to split them into several network locations, one per each adapter.
August 10th, 2011 10:41am

Hi, First, please use GP to assign a network type for all your NICs, then modify these NICs to the type you want to set in Networking and Shaing Center. Note: Under User permissions, please choose User can change location option. Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.
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August 10th, 2011 12:57pm

then modify these NICs to the type you want to set in Networking and Shaing Center. HOW? What do I click on to do that on a per-adapter basis? This is my topology now en Through Group Policy I can switch 'Unidentified network' to Private. That does not help - all it does is that ALL my adapters are now private. After that there's no options to select another profile for one of adapters. I want ONE of adapters to be public and two others to be private
August 10th, 2011 1:52pm

Bump. Any solution? I already set up file sharing through scopes in firewall, but some more complex things cannot be set that way (like network awareness, home group etc). Or, possibly they can be, but it's too complex for me.
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August 15th, 2011 12:57am

As a joke - this is my route table after I made modifications mentioned in first post. Horrible sight but working fine for a few hours already. I'll check tomorrow if it will survive The Reboot... IPv4 Route Table =========================================================================== Active Routes: Network Destination Netmask Gateway Interface Metric 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 172.25.24.1 172.25.24.30 5256 (External network) 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 192.168.0.254 192.168.0.1 19998 (Home network) 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 192.168.1.254 192.168.1.1 19998 (Archive comp crosslink) 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 172.25.56.1 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 1020 (Internet) And well, here's how I wanted it to be Still waiting for a solution - how to make it without multiple default gateways
August 16th, 2011 3:34pm

Hi Andy, I have reviewed your requirement. However, only the adapter which has been configured default gateway could be identified. The adapter which hasn't default gateway could not be identified and splited. There isn't any way which could change the behavior. Thanks for your understanding... Best Regards, Scott Xie
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August 18th, 2011 4:50am

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