When you are out and about with your laptop, connecting to adhoc networks is a serious security risk. These networks an unsecured and may be honey pots - where the person running the network is sniffing the traffic across it. Your best bet, no matter what type of computer you are using, is to *never* use an adhoc network.

Vista has a nice feature that allows you to configure your laptop so that it will never connect to an adhoc network. This is a great setting that will keep you from accidentally connecting to an insecure network. Here are the steps to take to set up Vista so that it will not connect to adhoc networks:

1 - Open a DOS shell with admin privileges. If you don't know how to do this go to Start -> All Program -> Accessories and then on "Command Prompt". From the menu select "Run as administrator".

2 - On the command line type:

netsh wlan add filter permission=denyall networktype=adhoc

and then hit Enter.

That's all there is to it. Your computer will no longer connect to adhoc networks.

If you change your mind and decide that you really need to connect to an adhoc network, you can do so by getting the command prompt with admin privileges back and running this command:

netsh wlan delete filter permission=denyall networktype=adhoc