Windows 7 What network type should we be using?

[Archquark]

We have setup a home network with 2 desktops and 2 laptops. The 2 desktops and 1 laptop are running Windows 7 Home Premium and 1 laptop is runnig Winows 7 Starter. My wife runs her bookeeping business out of the house and accesses customers sites using Remote Connection.

Would our network be more secure if set to a work network?

 

[Medico]

If you use WPA2 security this is quite secure. I would also set up a MAC address filter. You can check you MAC address on each PC by opening a command prompt and typing:

ipconfig /all

Find the MAC address and add it to the MAC filter on the router. Be sure to select Allow the listed PC's to connect, other wise you will disable the connection and that would be bad. Not all PC's are the same as mine but this will give you an idea how:



I have blocked out my MAC addresses for obvious reasons.

 

[Archquark]

If you use WPA2 security this is quite secure. I would also set up a MAC address filter. You can check you MAC address on each PC by opening a command prompt and typing:

ipconfig /all

Find the MAC address and add it to the MAC filter on the router. Be sure to select Allow the listed PC's to connect, other wise you will disable the connection and that would be bad. Not all PC's are the same as mine but this will give you an idea how:

View attachment 16724

I have blocked out my MAC addresses for obvious reasons.

Thanks Ted!

I had originally set my authentiaction to WPA2-PSK with AES encryptation but the IP tech said that this was specifically used on Apple computers and he suggested WPA-PSK with TKIP. My gateway gives these choices WEP-Open,Wep-Shared,WPA-PSK,WPA-PSK and WPA2-PSK and finally WPA2-PSK. I am not familiar with the differences between each but it appears that WPA2-PSK is more secure. Do you agree with the IP tech or should I return to WPA2-PSK?

I have setup my Mac address filtering so that my gateway only allows our laptops and our Wii on the wireless portion of the network. Our two desktops run on ethernet connections.

The only difference I see with a work network over a home network is that you cannot setup a HomeGroup. Since my wife uses her computer specifically for her bookeeping business, I see no reason to setup a HomeGroup as we do not exchange files or use each other's printer. I may change to a work network designation.