A ferromagnetic nanocomposite consisting of metal-structures enclosed in a porous silicon skeleton is investigated optically by FTIR-spectroscopy, magnetically by SQUID-magnetometry and the structural examination is performed by SEM. The ferromagnetic nanostructures are achieved by chemical deposition of Ni or Co from an adequate metal-salt electrolyte. Metal-deposited porous silicon samples exhibiting the metal inside the channels show roughly the same mid-IR transmittance as bare porous silicon in the range of 10%. FTIR-measurements are performed on differently metal-loaded samples with and without applied magnetic field. The deposited Ni-nanostructures are restricted to the highly oriented pores of an aspect ratio up to 1000 and therefore the samples show a strong magnetic anisotropy between easy axis and hard axis magnetization, respectively. In the field range below 1 T the observed anisotropy is mainly caused by shape anisotropy of the Ni- nanostructures (spheres and elongated particles). It enhances with the amount of needle-like shaped nanoparticles with a length of a few micrometers which fill the pores successively over the entire depth of the porous layer of about 30 µm. Magnetization measurements exhibit strong temperature dependence between 4.2 K and temperatures > 100 K. At low temperatures the samples do not get saturated with the available magnetic fields of 7 T but give rise to a paramagnetic behavior due to orbital magnetism. This additional magnetic behavior to the known ferromagnetic property is due to the enhanced orbital magnetic moment at surfaces compared to the spin moment. The orbital moment can be associated to the spin polarized states at the surface of the metal-particles which are less bound due to a reduced exchange interaction. The change in the magnetic behavior between the usual mere ferromagnetic character and the supplementary paramagnetic behavior is only observed for magnetic fields perpendicular to the sample surface (parallel to the pores/needles).