How to Workaround Vista Network Location (domain profile)

[Severin_Meyer]

If Windows Vista is joined to a domain, the network connected to the authenticating domain is marked as "domain profile".

Unfortunately, If there are other NICs (VMWare Virtual Interfaces), Vista doesn't know where they are located. All you can choose for these NICs is "public" or "private".

This results in the problem, that a Group policy defined Firewall Profile "Domain" is never used, until the additional NICs were completely deactivated.

Does anybody knows a workaround to classify the VMWare NICs as "Domain located"?

Regards

Severin

[guyrleech · Accepted solution]

Try searching for the NICs in "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}" (e.g. VMnet1, VMnet 8, etc), and adding a REG_DWORD value called "*NdisDeviceType" and setting it to 1. Then disable and re-enable the NICs. This will make them disappear from Vista's "Network and Sharing Center".

---

If you found this or any other answer useful please consider the use of the Helpful or Correct buttons to award points.

[Scissor]

I found a neat powershell script yesterday that makes the necessary changes for you at

http://www.petri.co.il/exclude-vmware-virtual-adapters-vista-2008-network-awareness-windows-firewall...

[Severin_Meyer]

Tahnk you very much. This was excatly what I've been searching for.

Severin