An Unexpected Program Appears in the Exceptions List

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Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Windows Server 2003 with SP2

You can see this problem occur when you open Windows Firewall and click the Exceptions tab.

Cause

A program can use the Windows Firewall application programming interface (API) to automatically add itself and other programs, ports, and services to the Windows Firewall exceptions list without notifying you.

Group Policy might be applying policy settings that you are unaware of to your computer.

Solution

You cannot prevent a program from using the Windows Firewall API to add itself or other programs, ports, or system services to the exceptions list. You can, however, determine whether programs are being added to the exceptions list through Group Policy. To do this, you must run the Resultant Set of Policy snap-in.

To determine which policies are being applied to a computer

  1. At the command prompt, type rsop.msc, and press ENTER.

  2. In the console tree, open Computer Configuration, open Administrative Templates, open Network, and then click Network Connections.

  3. In the console tree, click Windows Firewall, and double-click any policies that appear in the details pane to learn more about the policy.

  4. In console tree, click Domain Profile, and double-click any policies that appear in the details pane to learn more about the policy.

  5. In the console tree, click Standard Profile, and double-click any policies that appear in the details pane to learn more about the policy.