Lesson 1: Configuring Security Settings in Windows Firewall

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Figure 8-2

The Windows Firewall Settings dialog box

Selecting the Off option completely disables Windows Firewall. The most likely reason why

you might want to disable Windows Firewall is if you want to install a third-party software

firewall on your Windows Vista computer and you want to allow this firewall, rather than

the one that ships with Windows Vista, to manage your computer’s network security. It is

important to note that you should not disable Windows Firewall just because you have

another firewall between your computer and the network, such as a small office/home office

(SOHO) router or Network Address Translation (NAT) device. It is perfectly normal to have

firewalls active even when your computer is on a protected network. It might be that another

computer on your protected network is infected by a worm. Dropping your firewall could

lead to your computer becoming infected, even though the protected network is theoreti-

cally safe. Using a firewall is not always a sign of paranoia. On the network, anyone could be

out to get you!

To apply Windows Firewall to certain connections only, you should click the Advanced tab, as

shown in Figure 8-3. You can remove or apply the firewall to each configured network connec-

tion on your computer by selecting or clearing the check box next to its name. From this tab,

it is also possible to restore Windows Firewall to its default settings. You should click this but-

ton if you are concerned that specific exceptions have made the computer insecure. The prob-

lem with doing this is that you will need to re-create all necessary exceptions as the need for

them arises.