I have been setting up a brand new Acer laptop with Windows 8 SL preinstalled. It connects to my wireless network without a hitch. But if I plug in an ethernet cable on the same network, I do not get the sharing dialog bar, and the network is set to Public (unidentified). Nothing I do will change it to Private. I have tried using manual IP settings, tried everything possible in Advanced Sharing Settings. I even used the Homegroup troubleshooter, which said it had changed the network type to Private - But as soon as the machine was restarted, it was back to Public. The ability to right-click on the network name does not work either.
I have many other Windows 8 machines running quite happily on this cabled network, so I thought the laptop might be faulty. I took it to another site, and voila! As soon as I connected a LAN cable I got the sharing dialog and the laptop worked perfectly!
Back at my site, I then suspected the router. I replaced it with another one, but got the same symptoms as described above. Public, unidentified. Can NOT be changed.
This is a serious issue. Is there a proper solution?