Before you explore Windows
Firewall, take a look at the Action Center. This is a single point of
notification for most of your PC’s security. You can open the Action
Center in several ways. Use whichever is most convenient for you:
- From the Windows Start screen, show the Charms Bar and click
Search. Click Control Panel, click System And Security, and then click
Action Center.
- On the desktop, right-click the flag icon in the Notification area and choose Open Action Center.
- On the desktop, press Windows+X, choose Control Panel, click System And Security, and then click Action Center.
Whichever method you use, the Action Center opens. Figure 1
shows an example. We clicked the arrow button to the right of each
heading so that you can see the descriptive text under each heading.
You can click that button to show or hide the same descriptive text.
How you know Windows Firewall is On
By default, Windows Firewall is turned
on and working at all times, so your Action Center should show “On”
beside the Firewall item, as in Figure 9.2
(and you will see only the Network Firewall item in Action Center if
you click the arrow beside the Security heading). If your version of Figure 9.2
shows Off or Not Monitored, you may have a third-party firewall program
running in place of Windows Firewall. Many such programs are available,
such as McAfee, Symantec, and Check Point. If your firewall is turned
off and you don’t know why, it would be good to find out the reason —
perhaps from your computer manufacturer or a support person who worked
on your computer. If you don’t have any firewall up, you should
definitely turn on Windows Firewall.
Note
There is no advantage to having two or
more firewalls running simultaneously. In fact, more than one firewall
is likely to cause unnecessary problems.
Turning Windows Firewall on or off
To turn Windows Firewall on or off, you
must have administrative privileges. In the System And Security Control
Panel window, click Windows Firewall. You should see the current
firewall status in the right pane, and options for controlling the
firewall in the left pane. Click Change Notification Settings or Turn
Windows Firewall On or Off in the left pane to see the options shown in
the foreground of Figure 2.
Tip
Use the Block All Incoming Connections
check box only to temporarily disable exceptions when connecting to
public Wi-Fi networks. You can find more on that topic in the sections
that follow.
If you have a third-party firewall that you feel
is more secure than the Windows Firewall, you can choose the Off option
to turn off Windows Firewall. Just make sure you have a firewall up
when you go online. Otherwise, you won’t have anything to stop
uninvited traffic on your network connection after the traffic gets by
your Internet Service Provider.
Tip
If you have a firewall at home,
such as a wireless access point (WAP) or a cable or DSL modem that
provides firewall features, and those features are turned on, you can
safely turn off Windows Firewall. However, there usually is no downside
to leaving Windows Firewall turned on even when an upstream firewall is
in place. The exception is when you are trying to play multiplayer
games or accomplish networking with other computers on the network and
can’t get the ports right in Windows Firewall to make it work. In these
situations, just turn off Windows Firewall on the computers.
