Intel 6230, medium power saving, and shared folders

Was running the L702x on battery, something I hardly ever do, and found that while I could connect to the internet, I could not access shared folders on any of my other PCs. All are Win 7.

Finally figured out that in Win 7 power settings, the 6230 wireless adapter was set to run at "medium power savings" on battery, "maximum performance" on AC.

I changed the battery setting to "maximum performance" as well, and bingo, suddenly I could see shares. I tried to find documentation on this behavior, though I didn't try very long, didn't find anything.

This brought up a couple questions:

From a networking configuration and status perspective, where would you look in Windows to see that web browing and general internet connectivity are working, but network share connectivity is not?

Why would access to shared folders be denied entirely on medim savings, but general web browsing still be permitted?

 

No one has any ideas how where to look in Windows to tell what types of network connections are permitted or denied? If Windows can allow internet connections but prevent connections to shares on the LAN, there's gotta be some way to configure it other than changing the power settings on the network card.