Network identified as public instead of private

Hello,

I have VMware Player installed which created 2 virtual network adapters.
These adapters are seen by Vista as a separate unidentified network from my
wired connection and are tagged as public. No matter how many times I change
it to private, every reboot returns them to public. The problem with this is
that the firewall sees the public network as the active one and uses public
rules which don't allow all the things I want. I suppose I could change all
the public rules to be just like the private ones, but it seems like there
should be some other way out of this and I think I might want public rules
for some reason in the future. How do I get Vista to see these adapters as
either part of my wired network, or as part of a different private network?
I looked at merging the networks when I changed the settings to private from
public, but Vista wouldn't allow it. Or, how do I get Vista to see my real
private network as the active network instead of the virtual network? Why
doesn't my designation of the network as private stick?

Thanks.