Properties vs Public variables

private int _name;

public int Name
{
    get { return _name; }
    set { _name = value; }
}

public int Name;

Why would you use properties

Start with the simplest thing that works-- a public variable. You can always refactor this later into a property if it turns out additional work needs to be done when the name value is set
there are valid reasons to make a trivial property, exactly as depicted above:
- Reflection works differently on variables vs. properties, so if you rely on reflection, it's easier to use all properties
- You can't databind against a variable
It's a shame there's so much meaningless friction between variables and properties; most of the time they do the exact same thing

In this case, we barely have a property. But if you are executing code in a property, make sure you've written a property and not a method
A property should do less work-- a lot less work-- than a method
Properties should be lightweight. If your property incurs significant effort, it should be refactored into an explicit method
Otherwise it's going to feel like an annoying side-effect of setting a property
And if there's any chance at all that code could spawn an hourglass, it definitely should be a method
Conversely, if you have a lot of simple, lightweight methods, maybe they ought to be expressed as properties
The really important thing to take away here is to avoid writing code that doesn't matter. And property wrappers around public variables are the very essence of meaningless code
When in doubt, try to follow the Microsoft internal coding guidelines unless you have a compelling reason not to