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Windows Vista includes two firewalls?

I've heard that Windows Vista Ultimate has two different firewalls included; I want to be able to scan both incoming and outgoing data. How do I do that? Does it matter which firewall I use?

Dave's Answer:

It's true; Windows Vista Ultimate does contain two separate, but very different, types of firewalls:

The generic Windows Firewall, which is accessible through the Windows Security Center
The Windows Firewall with Advanced Security, which is available through the Start menu search feature

If you want a true bi-directional firewall, you'll want to use the latter! Finding it can be a bit of a chore; however; you can best reach it by:

Click the Start button.
Type "firewall" in the Start Search box at the bottom of the Start menu.
Select Windows Firewall with Advanced Security.
Click Continue.

The Windows Firewall with Advanced Security appears using a Microsoft Management Console (MMC) window. The center panel displays an overview of your firewall settings. By scrolling down the panel, you can access firewall properties. These allow you determine the firewall's state (on/off, monitor inbound/outbound/all traffic), logging, or settings for each profile as shown below.

In the left panel of the application, there are icons for inbound and outbound rules, connection security, and monitoring. Let's first set up inbound rules for configuring how the firewall manages incoming data packets. To do this:

Click Inbound Rules.
Click New Rule... in the Actions panel; the New Inbound Rule Wizard appears.
Select the Rule Type.
Select the Program.
Select the action to take; either block the connection, allow it, or only allow it if it secure.
Select the Profile to apply (Domain, Private, or Public).
Add a name and description (optional).

Your new rule appears among the list of inbound rules, as shown below.

You can set rules for outbound connections and connection security in a similar manner using these options from the left panel. All of the features mentioned above are unique to the Windows Firewall with Advanced Security; the standard Windows Firewall doesn't let you perform these tasks.

This tip was contributed by Derek Torres, co-author of the splendid new book The Unofficial Guide to Windows Vista. Thanks, Derek!

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Categorized: Windows Help (Article 7047)
Tagged: vista firewalls, windows vista, windows vista ultimate
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Comments

Really interesting. I thought I had clicked everything in Vista, but I missed the difference here.

Posted by: Bruce at December 6, 2006 4:34 PM

Thanks, Dave, for hosting our book. I hope that our Q&A on Vista will prove useful for your readers. Cheers!

Posted by: Derek at December 6, 2006 7:46 PM

Dave, since Vista has a firewall that handles both incoming and outgoing traffic, do you think it is 'strong' enough that a separate firewall is no longer needed? With Win XP SP2 (my present OS), I use the Comodo Firewall instead of the Windows firewall. Thanks for a great newsletter..Jim

Posted by: Jim Hamm at January 13, 2007 3:09 PM

I have a question about windows fire wall and I also have ca security (free from Time Warner Cable) installed on my pc (vista). My question is that since I installed the ca security I can no longer download games from wild coins or big fish. I use to love to play there. I did everything they all suggested in the firewall settings and still it will not allow me to down load games. Any suggestions? I am not really great at the security part of the pc. I really need help, I would hate to really mess this up.
Thank you for your response, if you will.
Sincerely,
Tracy

Posted by: Tracy at February 26, 2009 10:02 AM

I think Vista really has just 1 Firewall, but there are two interfaces for it. At least that's how I read it on Microsoft's site. Below is a snippet and a link from their Getting Started Guide...

Windows Firewall with Advanced Security is a stateful, host-based firewall that blocks incoming and outgoing connections based on its configuration. While end-user configuration still takes place through the Windows Firewall tool in Control Panel, advanced configuration of Windows Firewall now takes place in a Microsoft Management Control (MMC) snap-in named Windows Firewall with Advanced Security.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc748991.aspx

Posted by: Rick at April 14, 2009 7:16 AM

Dave's Answer:
It’s true; Windows Vista Ultimate does contain two separate, but very different, types of firewalls:

That statement is very misleading, it is completely UNTRUE that Vista contains two separate firewalls. Vista contains one firewall with two different ways to access its settings, a basic interface via security consol for users to set up basic rules to block or allow incomming connections, and an advanced interface via mmc for more experienced users to set up rules for both inbound and outbound connections, ip sec and encryption, domain and server isolation etc. Both interfaces access settings in the same firewall.

Posted by: Ian at April 23, 2009 9:45 PM

I have a lot to say, but ...

I have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but most of all I'd like to say thank you for all your efforts on this Web site by buying you a chai!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!