Activate Windows XP Fire Wall and learn how to use it, after all its Free Firewall Protection


Activate Windows XP Fire Wall Article
Firstly lets not get confused when I talk about the Windows XP firewall , there are in effect two of them. The original one , and the one that comes with Service Pack 2. Throughout the whole of this article, we are referring to the Windows XP service pack 2 firewall.

To begin with if you are looking to install the Service Pack Firewall , you will first have to install Windows XP service pack 2 , please see link at bottom of page.

If you are unsure as to whether you have XP Service pack 2 installed , Go to the start menu / Run and type Winmsd , this will then tell you under summary.

When installed you should not need to activate windows XP fire wall, as a default it will already be active.

It also comes with pretty good default settings.

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You can access the Firewall through Control panels so , Control Panels / Windows Firewall.

General Tab

From the main Windows Firewall screen we have several choices , On and Off are self explanatory.

The other option Dont allow exceptions basically means if you setup any exceptions or programs / ports from the exceptions tab , Dont allow exceptions will override this when ticked.

 

 

 

Exceptions Tab

From the above image we can see all of the Programs and ports which are setup as exceptions to the XP firewalls rules.

Any program which is ticked is enabled.

Simply click in the box to enable or disable access.

Of course the access of all these programs are controlled by the Dont allow exceptions option we discussed on the General Tab.

As your computer will no doubt have many different applications to mine your list will be different.

If you want to give access to another application you only need to select Add Program now you just need to select the application from the list or browse to its location.

 From the Add port & Change Scope screens we can give access to specific ports , specific IP addresses, or ranges of IP addresses, its very flexible , so if you have a number of computers which require access to your computer, you can easily give access as one rule as opposed to a rule for each.

The reason for a fire wall to monitor out going connections these days is due to viruses , spyware and other dubious applications, which if present on your computer, and are allowed to access the internet may pass on details such as keystrokes, which could be confidential information such as banking details etc.

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Advanced Tab

The advanced Tab show us all of the current network connections on the computer as you can see on the above screen there are three of them.

The local Area Connection and Speedy are both ticked , this means that the Firewall is active and monitoring these two connections.

The Wireless Network Connection is not ticked so no Firewall rules apply here.

If you click on the Settings box , you can customize the settings for each connection.

It will give you a standard list of services, but you can add and remove items from this.

activate windows XP fire wall article

Note ..

To add any items you will need to know details such as IP address and Port Numbers.

Security Logging

Keeping a log is always interesting as it give you a clearer picture of what is going on behind your firewall.

To set this up select Settings from the Security Logging sub heading and specify a location for the file.

ICMP Internet Control Message Protocol

If you are on a network this is an easy way to share network information such as status and errors.

Restore Defaults

Lastly we have the play it safe button Restore defaults

Using the Window XP firewall is not childs play , but if you stick with it, it is a good piece of software, that really is worth getting to grips with.

If you find issues after playing with the settings again just hit the Restore Defaults button.

You really cant mess anything up.


 

Install and activate windows XP fire wall its free firewall protection, get to grips with the window XP firewall XP home edition fire wall .

Checkout our article which covers where to download from, installing and what else it comes with it.

activate windows xp firewall article

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