Emulate Windows 7 network *locations* in XP mode
I've inquired on Windows 7 forums previously about how to ensure that XP mode has the same protection as Windows 7 when the latter is set to a specific network location e.g. Home/Work/Public network. Being not very network savvy, I miscommunicated that previous question. I mistakenly asked how to have XP mode emulate the network *profile* that is in effect on Windows 7. What I meant is how to have XP mode emulate the network *location* that is in effect on Windows 7. I don't want the XP virtual machine to be a huge security hole, even though I have the network identified as (say) a Public network in Windows 7. Effectively, this question amounts to asking whether there is a way for xP mode to flip back and forth between different sets of security and firewall settings so as to have the same level of protection as the network locations in Windows 7. There are two ways that I can see this happening, if it is possible. The best case would be to have the security and firewall settings automatically propagate to the XP virtual machine whenever a network location is selected in Windows 7 (or whenever a network is chosen in Windows 7, since networks are associated with network locations). I suspect that this automatic propagation is not available because life would be too simple if it was. Any comments on this? The second way I can see this happening is for the poor non-tech-savvy user to figure out all the security and firewall settings that are set by each network location in Windows 7, then create suites of such settings in XP so that they can be manually applied by the user in order to keep XP's security and firewall setting the same as Windows 7's. This means that whenever the network location changes in Windows 7, the user will apply the corresponding suite of settings in XP to get the same effect. This nonideal approach has several assumptions: (1) It assumes that firewall and security settings can be saved a bundle, and that individual bundles can be applied automatically somehow, and (2) it assumes that such settings are easy to determine for the different network locations. It also assumes that the XP machine sees the same network as the Windows 7 machine (otherwise, why would you apply the same security and firewall settings on both machines). Any comments on this? The final possible scenario is that neither of the two ways are possible or practical. In this case, I would like the XP virtual machine to perpetually have the firewall/security settings of Windows 7's Public network. How would a non-tech-savvy user go about achieving this?
September 10th, 2010 5:31am

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