Step 1: Starting Windows Firewall in Control Panel

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Updated: December 7, 2009

Applies To: Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Vista

In this step, you open the Windows Firewall icon in Control Panel on each of your domain member computers.

To open Windows Firewall in Control Panel on CLIENT1

  1. On CLIENT1, log on as contoso\admin1 with the password Pass@word1.

  2. Click Start, and then click Control Panel.

    In Windows 7, the default Control Panel view is View by: Category. In Windows Vista, the default view is Control Panel Home. The steps that follow assume that you are using the default view.

  3. Click System and Security (Windows 7) or Security (Windows Vista), and then click Windows Firewall.

  4. On the Windows Firewall page, note the following default settings that are part of a typical installation, as shown in the following figures:

    • Windows Firewall is enabled on all profiles.

    • Unsolicited inbound connections that do not have an exception are blocked.

    • When a program tries to listen for incoming connections and is prevented from doing this by the firewall, a notification is displayed to the user.

    • The current settings are those assigned to the Domain network location profile because the computer is joined and authenticated to an Active Directory domain.

    Default options in Windows 7:

    Default options in Windows Vista:

  5. Keep Windows Firewall in Control Panel open.

Now examine the same interface on Windows Server.

To open Windows Firewall in Control Panel on MBRSVR1

  1. On MBRSVR1, log on as contoso\admin1 with the password Pass@word1.

  2. Click Start, and then click Control Panel.

    • In Windows Server 2008 R2, the default Control Panel view is View by: Category. Click System and Security and then click Windows Firewall.

    • In Windows Server 2008, the default Control Panel view is Classic View. Click Windows Firewall.

  3. On the Windows Firewall page, note the following default settings that are part of a typical Windows Server installation:

    • Windows Firewall is enabled on all profiles.

Note

If the computer that is running Windows Server was upgraded from an earlier version of Windows Server that included Windows Firewall then the On/Off state is preserved in the upgrade. 

  - Unsolicited inbound connections that do not have an exception are blocked.  
      
  - When a program tries to listen for incoming connections and is prevented from doing this by the firewall, a notification is **not** displayed to the user.

Note

This differs from the default setting on Windows 7 or Windows Vista. 

  - The current settings are those assigned to the **Domain network** location profile because the computer is joined to a domain and authenticated.
  1. Keep Windows Firewall in Control Panel open.

Next topic: Step 2: Examining the Basic Options Available by Using the Control Panel Interface