Introduction

This guide shows you how to manually change the network location type of a network connection in Windows Vista.

What are location types?

Location types are preset security settings for different types of networks. Your choices for locations types are:

• Home or Work (Private): This location type is meant for computers located in home or office networks that are behind a gateway protecting them from people outside their private network from accessing their computers. This is the case for most home and office networks behind a router or broadband modem. Network discovery is turned on which lets you browse the network and other people on the network access shared folders on your computer.
• Public: This location type is meant for public networks like wireless hotspots at coffee shops, airports, and libraries. Network discovery is turned off making you virtually invisible to others on the same network.

Change Your Location Type

1. Open the Start Menu and type network in the search box and then click Network and Sharing Center.
2. Click Customize all the way to the right of the network you want to change the location type. In this example I’m changing the location type for the SERVICE_PUBLIC network from Public to Private.

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3. Select Public (Home or Work) or Private for the network location type and then click Next.

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4. Click Close in the next window that tells you your network location type was successfully changed and you’re done.

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