ThinkVantage Access Connections - Location Profiles for temporary, public Hotspots

Hi,

I've been using Access Connections for a bit now. It seems to be doing a great job of connecting to various networks with different configurations.

I was wondering how people are using it when they connect to a temporary, public hotspot. The only way I've figured out how to use it, is to connect to it and then, manually go back and edit the profile to customize the security settings (File sharinng disabled, etc.).

Is there a way to set the default template to set the initial settings so that every network I connect to, which doesn't already have a profile, will have these initial settings?

Or is there a simpler method to connect to public hotspots that I'm just missing all together?

Thanks!

 

not sure about Access Connections settings (I stopped using it a few years back) but two other options jump to mind: one is to set up OS-based profiles, so when you start your laptop up in a public place you can select the profile that has whatever you want disabled (hardware, processes etc.). The other is to use firewall software to restrict access in certain ways when connected to a public network.

 

Hi,

Thanks for getting back to me.

I've actually not heard of OS based profiles before. I'm using XP. Can you give me a bit more information about them?

Thanks!

 

Google "windows XP hardware profiles" and you'll get plenty of help. Once you've set up a hardware profile or two, you can then go to the services applet (control panel -> administrative tools -> services) and you can select which processes you do or don't want to run in a profile. Right click on a process, select "properties", select the "log on" tab and you can select a specific hardware profile in which that service will or will not run

 

Thanks for the info!

That's really useful information for loading hardware specific configurations.

 

Does anyone have any information on configuring Access Connections specifically?

What I'm hoping to do is be able to load a configuration before I connect to it. For example, I want to force my DNS to something specific, and disable file sharing, before I connect to a LAN. Then I can join several networks with these settings, without having to set each one specifically.

Is this possible in Access Connections? I know I used to be able to do it on Toshiba's ConfigFree.

Sorry for not being clearer in my original post.

Thanks!