ICS Unidentified Network
I have set up a network in my Motorhome. I have 3 computer running Windows 7 Pro and a NAS connected via a wired Ethernet. I am using 2 Ethernet Switches to connected everything together. To connect to the internet I use either campground WiFi or a USB cell phone Modem. I have Internet Connecting Sharing enabled on the computer that gets the WiFi or Modem connection. All of the computers can see one another, each can map the NAS and they can connect to the Internet. Here is the problem, on the computer with ICS enabled it shows two networks, the WiFi connection and the Local LAN. I can set the network type (Home, Work or Public) on the WiFi connection but the Local LAN is marked as Unidentified and defaulted to Public, because of this I can't enable Homegroups. I have read the post regarding this issue on this forum and there seem to be two suggestions to fix the issue. One is to change the Local Security Group settings to set the default for Unidentified to Private instead of Public. The other is to set the default gateway on the adapter used to create the Local LAN to a known IP address of a device on the network. I can see how to change the Unidentified network to default to private but when I do that Windows identifies the network type to Work which prevents the setup of Homegroups. I know how to set the default gateway to a specific IP address but since all the devices are set to obtain IP addresses automatically I am not sure what IP address I should use for the Gateway. I would like to know the pros and cons of the two options and if there are better options?
March 15th, 2010 3:51am

You can't set the default gateway of the ICS private NIC to anything. It is automatically configured without a default gateway by ICS. It is itself the default gateway for the machines on your private LAN. I have no idea why this NIC would show as "Work" if you change the default security setting to prevent it being set to Public. Bill
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March 15th, 2010 5:01am

That is not much of an answer, I sure hope someone can provide a more definitive answer. I can understand the limits on setting a gateway although I have read other post on this forum that recommend setting the gateway to a know IP address. As far as Work or Home there must be a setting somewhere that makes that determination.
March 16th, 2010 2:02am

Bill is correct.You may find forums here saying just about anything.You can set the gateway Ip what ever you wish, of course the network will not have Inet access and it is WRONG to do so.As the gateway is how your traffic finds it's way to the net, in the case of ICS that gateway is box running ICS.A better way to do this...sure buy a Wi-Fi bridge device http://www.mwave.com/mwave/skusearch_v3.asp?scriteria=AA91001oruse http://www.connectify.me/or any wi-fi device which supports soft AP
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March 16th, 2010 4:03am

Hi, Regarding this issue, I think this shoud be a Multi-Homed network related issue; I would like to share the following with you: Source IP address selection on a Multi-Homed Windows Computer Default Gateway Configuration for Multihomed Computers Hope this helps. Thanks.Nicholas Li - MSFT
March 16th, 2010 10:59am

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