Seperating networks in vista.

I am going to preface this question by stating that I have come to the conclusion that I no longer understand networking and modern operating systems.

I am attempting to set up the following:

I have a desktop computer with windows 7: This computer has both a wireless network card and an on board ethernet controller. I use the wireless card to get access to the wireless connection for my neighbor (we split the bill and I don't have to bother dealing with the ISPs on my own).

I also have my own router, a WRT54G with dd-wrt firmware. I'm mostly using this router to play around with; though I am attempting to setup my own wireless network that I can use to share files between my my desktop computer and a laptop that I just refurbished.

When I enable both my wireless card and my ethernet controller, windows has both the "Local Area Connection" and "Wireless Network Connection 2" on the same "network"


Here's what I'm trying to do:

Setup the wireless connection as a "public" type network; as I only want to use it to get my internet connection from my neighbor.


Setup the wired connection as a separate "home network", with which I will have file sharing enabled and use it to share files between my desktop and laptop, but specifically not with my neighbors.


I have the router setup with its own wireless connection that the laptop uses, and I can successfully share files between the two computers.

However, If i also want to browse the internet on the desktop, I have to use the wireless card. Enabling the card does allow me to get online, but it appears to be part of the same "home" network that I setup with my wired connection to the router.

So maybe I'm going about this all arse-backwards, but is it possible (or do I need to) setup two different networks to achieve what I want? Is there some better way to utilize the dd-wrt router to get the internet connection from my neighbor and then setup both file sharing and internet access through the router itself?

derp...