Unidentified network

hello.
i'm trying to establish a home network between my 2 computers both running win 7 7100 (main is x64, secondary is x86). they are connected directly with an ethernet cable. my main computer shares its internet connection with the secondary computer (thus main's ip address for that connection is static, secondary is dynamic, assigned by dhcp).
my main computer does not recognize the network connection between the 2 computers - it shows up as an unidentified network and i cannot change its name or location (it's stuck at public).
is there any way to get my main computer to recognize the network without adding any hardware?

I recommend getting a good home router. They're not very expensive. But yes, it is possible to network two pcs to each other with a special crossover ethernet cable. You can not just use a "normal" one that you'd typically use to connect to a router.

http://www.homenethelp.com/web/expla...-crossover.asp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethernet_crossover_cable

that's something i didn't know, but i think the clerk asked me if i was going to connect 2 computers or a computer to a router and gave me the correct cable.
would it really be the issue in this case though? everything works (sharing the internet connection, sharing files, etc).
the only real problem i have is that since all connections are considered public i must turn on network discovery for public networks in order to communicate with the secondary computer, revealing my main computer to other computers in the same segment of my isp.