Secure your wireless network with Windows Live OneCare 2.0
Today, quite a few households have wireless networks that are unsecure - wide open for anyone to connect to. This could be a huge problem especially if PC’s in that home are sharing important family files - like photos and documents - that shouldn’t be seen by strangers. In Windows Live OneCare 2.0, a new feature is coming that will let users of Windows Live OneCare secure an unsecure wireless network in their home. I decided to give this new feature a try and share my experience.
Once I connected to the unsecure wireless network, I launched Windows Live OneCare and was alerted by Windows Live OneCare that I was on an unsecure wireless network and that it can help me to secure it. I clicked “Turn-on” and started the process. Here is a video demo of me going through the process of securing an unsecure wireless network:
Video: Demo: OneCare Wireless Security
I’d like to take a few moments to elaborate on a few things from the video. First off: the router I used to test this was *not* connected to the Internet. Most users who will use this feature to secure their router will have it connected to the Internet. Once going through the wizard to secure the router with Windows Live OneCare - the user and any other PC’s on the home network should be able to access the Internet just fine. There will be no issue securing a router connected to a WAN (WAN being your ISP for Internet access).
To secure your wireless network - you are required to connect via cable (Cat-5) - which is why I needed a Cat-5 cable in my video to proceed with the process of securing my router. This is important as this prevents anyone from connecting to your network wirelessly and using Windows Live OneCare to wipe your wireless networking settings with their own settings. This is what the OneCare Team calls the “proof of ownership” check.
In securing your router - it does not completely wipe out all your settings. The settings that Windows Live OneCare changes during the securing process are the SSID, enabling of WEP security, & setting of the WEP key. After Windows Live OneCare secures your router, you are given instructions on how to set up other PC’s on your home network with the new settings Windows Live OneCare enabled on your router.
This is looking to be a very useful and interesting feature for home users who are unfamiliar (and maybe uncomfortable) getting onto their router and configuring it for secure wireless capabilities.
There is a wiki setup over on Channel 9 with informaton on this feature of Windows Live OneCare 2.0 worth checking out as well.
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Written by Brandon LeBlanc. Read more great feeds at is source WEBSITE
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How Libraries & HomeGroup Work Together in Windows 7
I’ve gotten the chance to play around with the Windows 7 pre-beta build and I feel like a kid in a candy store. There are many new features that I personally am excited about that I hope to blog about over time. To kick things off I wanted to discuss the several new features in Windows 7 that make managing and sharing your files on your home network a much easier experience than ever before. Using Windows 7’s Libraries along with its HomeGroup network sharing feature, I was able to share content with other PC users on my home network. I’m going to go into detail on my experience with Libraries and setting up a HomeGroup on my network with Windows 7 to illustrate these new features for you. And believe it or not… it all starts with the relatively minor changes made to the naming of folders within User Profiles in Windows 7.
One of the things you’ll notice first is the User Profile folder structure in Windows 7 has changed a little bit from what was seen in Windows Vista.
In Windows Vista: Documents, Downloads, Photos, Videos, and Music
In Windows 7: Personal Documents, Personal Downloads, Personal Photos, Personal Videos, and Personal Music.
The naming also changed in the Public User Profile: Public Documents, Public Downloads, Public Photos, Public Videos, and Public Music.
These folder structure changes were made to accommodate a new Windows Explorer feature in Windows 7 called Libraries. Libraries exist in the Navigation Pane of Windows Explorer which has been updated for Windows 7. In Windows 7, users are given Libraries that consist of multiple “library locations” or folders from both their User Profile and Public User Profile.
For example: the Documents Library in Windows 7 consists of your Personal Documents folder under your profile and the Public Documents folder – or 2 “locations”.
By default, my Libraries consisted of the following folders:
· Documents: Personal Documents and Public Documents
· Downloads: Personal Downloads and Public Downloads
· Music: Personal Music and Public Music
· Photos: Personal Photos and Public Photos
· Videos: Personal Videos and Public Videos
There is a very specific reason why each of these Libraries consists of a Personal folder and Public folder. It ties in with HomeGroup and specific permissions which I will talk about very soon… keep reading ;-)
When I view the Documents Library – it displays all files and folders from any folder I have included in this Library in a single Windows Explorer view.
In the above screen shot, the EXAMPLE folder in the red box is a folder in the Public Documents folder while the rest of the folders are from my Personal Documents folder.
To add locations to a Library, all I needed to do was hit the location button in the top right-hand corner. To create custom Libraries, all I needed to do was right-click on “Libraries” in the Windows Explorer Navigation Pane and choose “New”. I decided to try adding a folder from my Windows Home Server to my Document Library. I had a folder full of documents on my Windows Home Server that would be perfect for my Documents Library. To my excitement I was easily able to add the folder to my Documents Library just fine. So Network locations such as Windows Home Servers are in for “library locations”!
Either way – creating custom Libraries or adding folders to a Library are very easy.
These Libraries can easily be shared with other people on your Home network through a new network sharing feature in Windows 7 called HomeGroup.
In creating a HomeGroup I was also able to choose which Libraries I would like to share out to the HomeGroup.
A few things I discovered about HomeGroup when setting a HomeGroup up:
· In order to setup a HomeGroup, my PC’s Network Location needed to be set as “Home” in Network and Sharing Center. Just like in Windows Vista, a Network Location for networks your PC is connected to can be a Home network, Work network, or Public where Windows automatically applies certain settings to keep your PC safe (for example if you are on a Public network, Windows locks down your PC appropriately so you aren’t sharing important files with the world).
· If a HomeGroup had already been created on PC on this network – instead of asking me to create a HomeGroup, it would have asked me to join a HomeGroup and which Libraries I would like to share.
· There can be only 1 HomeGroup per Home network as far as I can tell and each HomeGroup is password-protected.
· Users on any Windows 7 PC) on my Home network can join the HomeGroup and are required to enter a password for that HomeGroup they are joining. This is great because if you have friends come over to your place – they can’t just jump on to your HomeGroup and access your stuff.
· Once a Windows 7 PC is joined to HomeGroup – any user on that Windows 7 PC can participate in HomeGroup. You can continue to access files from a User on a Windows 7 PC even if a different user is logged in to the PC.
So how does Personal Folders VS Public Folders tie in with HomeGroup?
I discovered that when sharing Libraries into my HomeGroup, the Public folders and Personal folders within the Libraries have different read/write permissions and are completely customizable.
In general, Public folders have read AND write permissions – meaning users in your HomeGroup can add and remove files to the folder.
Personal folders have read-only access. For files in your Personal folders within a Library – users in your HomeGroup can only view them – not edit, delete, etc.
To add a file to a Library being shared out via HomeGroup, all I needed to do was simply drag the file into the specific Library they want to add it to. That’s it. The file appears in that Library to everyone in the HomeGroup. But when I drag files to a Library someone is sharing in HomeGroup, the files are physically added to the “public” folder and not their “personal folder” (because of the permissions setup I mentioned above).
So let me give you a “real-world” example of how it works.
As you saw in the above screenshot, the user “Bruce Wayne” from the PC named MYUMPC was in my HomeGroup. I decide I want to add a photo to Bruce Wayne’s Photo Library. I dragged and dropped a photo onto his Photo Library. The photo appeared within that Library as it should. When Bruce Wayne checks out his Photo Library, he will see that photo I just added. However because of the read/write permissions of Personal and Public folders – the photo I *just* added to Bruce Wayne’s Photo Library actually sits physically within his Public Photos folder on his PC (the PC named MYUMPC).
Essentially PC users on your HomeGroup can add files to your Libraries but they physically sit in your Public folders on your PC and not your Personal folders. Your personal folders are preserved for only your important data. You don’t want people adding photos to your Personal Photos folder and messing up your photo collection – and the same with your music.
The way that Libraries are set up with the Personal and Public folders allows users to be in control of their personal data. You can choose to let folks in your HomeGroup view your data in your Personal folders within your Libraries or you can completely turn off access to your Personal folders all together giving only access to the Public folders within the Library.
With Windows 7’s new Libraries feature as well as the new HomeGroup feature – I discovered I am more easily in control of my data at the same time am able to easily share things out to people.
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Written by Brandon LeBlanc. Read more great feeds at is source WEBSITE
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Read more articles on Libraries and HomeGroup and PDC2008 and otherSoftware and windows 7 and Networking.
