Common Network Tasks

You saw earlier that the Network Center comes with a tasks pane that offers links to several of the most common networking tasks. The next few sections give you an overview of these tasks to give you a taste of how networking works in Windows Vista.

View Network Computers and Devices

When you're connected, you most likely want to check out what's on the network and access its resources. Vista gives you two ways to get started:

In the Network Center tasks pane, click View Network Computers and Devices.
Select Start, Network.

Either way, you see the Network Explorer, which lists the main network resources, such as the computers and media devices in your workgroup. As you can see in Figure 8.13, Details view shows you the resource name, category, workgroup or domain name, and the name of the network profile.

Figure 8.13. The Network Explorer shows you the main resources on the network to which you're connected.

Double-click a resource to see what it contains. For example, if you double-click a work-group computer, you see its shared items, as shown in Figure 8.14. Notice that Vista computers automatically share three folders:

Public This folder is open to everyone on the network and provides users with full read/write access.
Users This folder is open only to people with an account on the computer.
Printers This folder contains the computer's installed printers.

Figure 8.14. Double-click a workgroup computer's shared folder to see its contents.

Set Up File and Printer Sharing

Whether it's a folder, disk drive, or printer, networking is all about sharing. To set up sharing in Windows Vista, click the Network Center's View Sharing Settings icon. (Alternatively, open the Control Panel and select Share Files and Folders.) Figure 8.15 shows the Network File and Printer Sharing window that appears.

Figure 8.15. Use the Network File and Printer Sharing window to set up your computer's options for sharing files, folders, and printers.

For general network access, you have two choices:

People with a User Account and Password for This Computer Select this option to share resources only with people who know the username and password of an account on your computer.
Anyone Who Can Connect to My Network Select this option to allow any network user to access your shared resources.

To share the Public folder, you have three choices:

Don't Allow Network Access to the Public Folder Activate this option to prevent sharing the Public folder.
Allow People with Network Access to Open, But Not Change or Create Files Activate this option to share the Public folder but only allow network users to read files in that folder (Reader permission).
Allow People with Network Access to Open, Change and Create Files Activate this option to share the Public folder and allow network users to read, edit, and create new files in that folder (Owner permission).

To share the Printers folder, you have two choices:

Don't Allow Network Access to Printers Attached to This Computer Activate this option to prevent sharing the Printers folder.
Allow People On the Network to Use Printers Attached to This Computer Activate this option to share your Printers folder.

The Media Library Sharing group is connected to the Library Sharing feature in Windows Media Player. See "Library Sharing" in Chapter 9.

Finally, you also have two links for viewing shared files and folders:

Show Me All the Files and Folders I Am Sharing Click this link to open the Shared By Me search folder.
Show Me All the Shared Network Folders on This Computer Click this link to open a folder window showing your computer's shared folders and printers.

Connect to a Workplace

If you're on the road or working at home for the day, you might need to connect to your office network to check email or get some files. To do that, you need to create a connection to your workplace network. To do this in Windows Vista, open the Network Center and, in the task pane, click the Set Up a Connection or Network link, click Connect to a Workplace, and then click Next. Vista displays the dialog box shown in Figure 8.16. You have two choices:

Use My Internet Connection (VPN) Click this option to connect over the Internet using a virtual private networking connection. If you choose this option, Vista asks you to enter the URL or IP address of the VPN server, as well as a username and password. Click Connect when you're done.
Dial Directly Click this option to connect using your computer's modem and a phone line. In this case, you specify the phone number and your username and password, and then click Connect.

Figure 8.16. You can create either a VPN or dial-up workplace connection.

Set Up a Network

If you want to create your own peer-to-peer network at home or in your small office, Windows Vista has a wizard that takes you through the necessary steps. You get started by doing either of the following:

In the Network Center task pane, click Set Up a Connection or Network, click Set Up a Network, and click Next.
If you're browsing a network computer's resources, click Set Up a Home or Small Office Network.

In the initial Set Up a Network wizard dialog box that appears, click Next. The wizard then detects your networking hardware, including whether your network configuration includes a router, as shown in Figure 8.17.

Figure 8.17. Vista can detect whether your network is configured with a router.

Click Configure This Device Manually to open the router's home page (usually found at IP address 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1). If your router supports automatic configuration via a USB Flash drive, click Configure Wireless Settings for My Router and Save to USB Flash Drive instead. You then enter a name for the new network (this doubles as your network's SSID and profile name), enter a WPA security key, and turn file and printer sharing on or off.

Then Vista gives you the choice of saving the network settings to a USB Flash drive, as shown in Figure 8.18. After the settings have been saved, you simply plug the Flash drive into another Vista or XP computer that you want on your network. In the AutoPlay dialog box that appears, you choose the Wireless Network Setup Wizard option, as shown in Figure 8.19. This runs the wizard and, by using the settings stored on the Flash drive, sets up the computer on the network in seconds.

Figure 8.18. Vista gives you the option of saving the new network settings to a USB Flash drive so you can apply them on other computers that you want on the same network.

Figure 8.19. When you insert the Flash drive in another computer, the AutoPlay dialog box prompts you to start the Wireless Network Setup Wizard.

Add a Computer or Device

Previous versions of Windows showed network resources in either the Network Neighborhood or My Network Places, but those resources were mostly limited to domains, workgroups, and computers. Windows Vista is much more aware of other types of devices connected to the network, including media players, wireless access points, routers, and print servers. These devices usually appear in the Network Map, but some devices might not. To add those devices, open the Network Center and click the Add a Device to the Network link in the task pane. Vista immediately begins searching for network devices. If it finds any, it displays them in a list; you can decide which ones you want to add to your network.

Diagnose Network Problems

Windows XP came with a Repair tool that did a pretty good job of repairing connectivity problems because most networking problems can be resolved by running the Repair tool's basic tasks: disconnecting, renewing the DHCP lease, flushing various network caches, and then reconnecting. However, all too often the Repair would report that it couldn't fix the problem, which usually meant that the trouble existed at a level deeper in the network stack than the Repair tool could go. In an attempt to handle these more challenging connectivity issues, Vista comes with a completely redesigned Network Diagnostics Tool that digs deep into all layers of the network stack to try to identify and resolve problems.

To launch the Network Diagnostic Tool, Vista gives you several methods:

Right-click the notification area's Network icon and then click Diagnose.
In the Network Center, click View Status, and then click Diagnose.
If you lose a connection to a network share, Vista displays a dialog box to let you know, as shown in Figure 8.20. Click the Diagnose button.

Figure 8.20. Vista can search for other devices connected to your network.
In the Network Connections window (see "Manage Network Connections," later in this chapter), click the broken connection and then click Repair This Connection.

Manage Networks

If you connect to multiple networks, Vista enables you to manage the network profiles. For example, if you sometimes connect to a particular network using a wired connection and other times with a wireless connection, you can add both to the network profile.

To get started managing your networks, Vista gives you two choices:

In the Network Center, click Network List.
In the Control Panel, select Network and Internet, Network List.

Either way, the Network List window appears, as shown in Figure 8.21.

Figure 8.21. Use the Networks List window to manage your networks.

When you click a network, the Network List window offers three tasks for managing your networks:

Note

You can also get to the Reorder Wireless Networks window directly from the Network Center by clicking the Reorder Wireless Networks link in the tasks pane.

Reorder Wireless Networks Click this task to change the order in which Vista attempts to connect to your wireless networks when they're within range. Figure 8.22 shows the Reorder Wireless Networks window that appears.

Figure 8.22. Use the Reorder Wireless Networks window to change the order that Vista uses to connect to your wireless networks.
View Status and Properties Click this task to change properties of the network profile.
Network Center Click this task to open the Network Center.

Manage Network Connections

The final Network Center task is Manage Network Connections, which displays the Network Connections window, shown in Figure 8.23. This window shows you the basic status of each connection (Connected or Not Connected) and gives you the following task options:

Connect To Click this task to connect to or disconnect from a wireless network. (This task is available only when you click a Wireless Network Connection icon.)
Disable This Network Device Click this task to enable or disable the current network device.
Diagnose This Connection Click this task to launch the Network Diagnostics Tool (see "Diagnose Network Problems," earlier in this chapter).
Rename This Connection Click this task to edit the connection name.
View Status of This Connection Click this link to see more detailed information about the connection status.
Change Settings of This Connection Click this link to display the connection's property sheet, where you can configure the network adapter; install, uninstall, or configure network items (such as TCP/IP); and activate Internet Connection Sharing.

Figure 8.23. Use the Network Connections window to view and modify your network connections.