said by gate1975mlm :

What should a Home user use Public or Private in Vista?

quote:

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Behavior for the Public Location Type

For the Public location type, the assumption is that the computer is directly connected to the Internet and therefore exposed to incoming malicious traffic from the Internet. Because of a possible hostile networking environment, the following default settings are automatically configured for networks with the Public location type:

* Windows Firewall is turned on

* Network discovery is turned off

* All forms of file and printer sharing are turned off, including file sharing, printer sharing, public folder sharing, and media sharing

If you change these default settings, they will be applied to every network with the Public location type.

Behavior for the Private Location Type

For the Private location type, the assumption is that the computer is directly connected to a network of computers that you know or are reasonably certain does not contain malicious users and is separated from the Internet by a gateway or router that is performing firewalling against incoming traffic from the Internet. Because of a safer networking environment, the following default settings are automatically configured for networks with the Private network location type:

* Windows Firewall is turned on

* Network discovery is turned on

* All forms of file and printer sharing are turned off, including file sharing, printer sharing, public folder sharing, and media sharing

If you change these default settings, they will be applied to every network with the Private location type.

From the Network and Sharing Center, you can change a network from the Private to the Public location type, or vice versa.

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