Each security zone in Internet Explorer comes with a group of settings. These settings can be reached from Internet Explorer by opening the "Tools" menu and choosing "Internet Options- Security". (View a tutorial) or from Control Panel. A comparison of the default security settings for the three common zones is shown in the figures below. A table showing the default settings is also available. More recent XP machines with the .Net framework have some additional settings. Also the Microsoft VM entry is no longer present in newer machines. The changes can be compared here. A number of new settings have been added by the service pack 2 update for Windows XP and these settings are shown here.

Comparison of the settings for different Internet Explorer 6 security zones (prior to Windows XP SP2)

Settings for Internet Zone	Settings for Trusted Zone	Settings for Restricted Zone