Introduction to Windows Vista network features

As Microsoft's latest operating system, Windows Vista has made considerable improvements in the network, which not only enhances network performance, but also greatly improves network security. As an individual user, what can we get from it?

Network and Sharing Center

This is a new feature of Windows Vista, and through the network and Sharing Center, we can see all the options related to the network and adjust most of the settings in one interface. Figure 1 is the interface of the network and Sharing Center.

The diagram on the right-hand side shows the network connection diagram, which allows us to know how the computer connects to the network and whether it is connected to the Internet. The next "network" option shows the type of network that the computer is currently connected to. The last "Share and discover" lists all the network services that are turned on on this computer, such as whether files or printers are shared.

Network mapping Diagram

Click on the "View full map" connection in the upper-right corner of Figure 1 to open the Network Map window shown in Figure 2. This shows all the computers and network devices that are located on the local LAN, and can show the connection between the devices.

Figure 1

For your computer and device to appear here, you must meet some conditions: The device must support UPnP, and the device's firewall must have Windows file and printer sharing enabled. However, this feature can only determine the location of the Windows Vista PC, although computers running Windows XP can be detected, but the location of those computers cannot be judged. This is primarily because Windows XP does not support the LLTD (link layer topology Discovery, link-tier Topology Discovery) protocol required to detect locations.

As you can see from Figure 2, there are three computers in this network, two of which run Vista have already judged the location, connect to the gateway via the switch, and connect to the Internet uniformly. But there is also a computer running XP, but it is not possible to determine its location.

Figure 2

When the mouse pointer is placed on each device, the system automatically displays information about the device, such as its name, IP address, and so on. If you click the device directly, you can turn on the service on your device. For example, if you click on a computer in the network, Vista will automatically open the shared file on this computer (Figure 3), and if you click on a network device such as a router, Vista will even open the device's configuration Web page (if any).

Figure 3

Network location

The wide use of laptops makes it possible to access the Web anytime, anywhere, but it's easy to bring security risks. For example, when we use laptops in our own or company networks, because they are well protected, we tend to reduce the level of firewall protection or to open some services in order to implement certain features (such as File and Printer sharing). But if we use this laptop in a wireless network at an airport or a coffee shop, we need to adjust the security settings in a timely manner, improve the firewall protection level, and turn off unwanted network services. How does Windows Vista solve this problem every time you switch on the network and do these things manually?

A concept called "network location" is used in Vista. When we first connect a computer to a network, Vista asks us where the network is located (Figure 4), and we need to choose the most appropriate location based on the actual situation so that the system can make the right settings based on our choices.

Figure 4

For example, on a network that is set up as a "public network," the system will turn on the firewall and turn off file and printer sharing, but when connected to a network labeled "private", these restrictions will be much looser.

On the Network and Sharing Center page shown in Figure 1, we can switch between different network locations at any time by clicking on the "Custom" link (Figure 5).

Figure 5

Network Sharing and Discovery

If you want to view and set up a network share in an older version of Windows, it's pretty cumbersome because we need to set up multiple options in different locations on the system. But in Vista, all of this is integrated into the network and Sharing Center.

The "Share and discover" option in the center of the window shown in Figure 1 has many sub-items that correspond to different network operations, and the right side of each item name is marked with text to enable or disable the current state of the item. Not only that, you can also set the item in the menu that appears later, after you click each back (Figure 6).

Figure 6

File and Printer Sharing

To reduce the complexity of sharing files on the network, Microsoft has used a mechanism called "Simple File Sharing" in Windows XP, but the mechanism is not "simple", but rather complex. However, the default sharing mechanism in Vista is much smarter, with just a few simple steps to complete previously complex settings.

File-level sharing

This is Windows Vista's biggest breakthrough in network sharing. In previous versions of Windows, we could only set up shares for specific folders, but not for files. This means that we either have to share a folder, contain all of the files, or we can't share the entire folder. In Vista, we can share the specific file settings so that we can share some of the files in a folder on the network, while the rest of the files are not visible to network users.

There is a "share" button on the Explorer toolbar, and at any time, simply select the file or folder you want to share, and then click the button to share it (Figure 7). But what happens after you click on this button is discussed in a matter of case.

Figure 7

If the current user has full control over the selected file, Vista is automatically shared using the simple share mode, and if the current user does not have full control over the selected file, then only the advanced sharing mode is used and is generally required by the UAC acknowledgment (if UAC is enabled )。 However, although the pattern is different, but the idea is the same, that is: determine what to share, select the users allowed to access, set the appropriate permissions.

Simple sharing

The simple sharing mode interface is shown in Figure 8. First select the local user (or create a new user) that allows access to the share in the list of users, and then click the Add button to include it in the Allow list. You then need to set permissions for the added user. In the simple sharing mode, there are three different rights of "reader", "participant" and "common person", and the options in Vista are much simpler and clearer than the previous "read Only" and "Full Control" permissions. Once you have selected the appropriate permissions for each user, simply click the "Share" button and all settings are complete.

Figure 8

The differences between the three types of permissions mentioned above are as follows:

Reader: You can only view the contents of a shared file.

Contributors: You can view files, add files, and delete files that they add themselves (there is no option to share files separately).

Co-owners: You can view, change, add, and delete all shared files.

There will be a "two villain" icon on the shared file or folder (Figure 9).

Figure 9

Advanced sharing

If we want to share a folder that doesn't have full control, we won't be able to use simple sharing mode, only advanced sharing. After clicking on the "Share" button on such a project, you can see the dialog shown in Figure 10 and click on the "Advanced sharing" button to begin setting up sharing.

Figure 10

When you click the Advanced Sharing button, you can see the Advanced Sharing dialog box shown in Figure 11. First select the Share this folder option, and then set the share name, number of connections (as the client operating system, Vista depends on version, up to 10 concurrent connections allowed), comments, and add permissions to set the cache. This is not quite the same as the old version of Windows, so this article is not ready to say much.

Figure 11

Media Library Sharing

Media Library sharing is a new feature of Windows Media Player 11 in Vista, which allows us to treat a large hard disk computer as a home media server, where all AV files are stored on this computer while we are on other computers, even the Xbox 360, the network player , smart phones and other devices, you can directly through the pre-set playback software to play video files on the server.

This feature can be fully implemented on Windows Vista and partially implemented on Windows XP. A computer running Windows Vista can act as a server and client for a library share, which means that Vista can share its media files and also access files shared by other computers. Windows XP, after installing WMP 11, can only share native media files and cannot access media files shared by other computers on the network (of course, it is possible to share media files as files through a network Neighborhood).

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