Microsoft Windows XP
Windows XP Firewall
Information
The BlackICE PC Protection application provides
comprehensive personal firewall and intrusion protection
for individual PCs. BlackICE is simple to use. Novices
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computers, while sophisticated users have complete
control over the security process.
This unique
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protection guards the privacy of any home or office PC. BlackICE PC Protection is widely available through
retail and online outlets, and is easily upgraded over
the Internet, ensuring that protection is always up to
date.
BlackICE PC Protection is the first BlackICE offering
from Internet Security Systems. In addition to all the
great technology previously available under the
NetworkICE brand, Internet Security Systems brings
unmatched security know-how and industrial-grade
protection to any desktop or mobile PC.
This new version features a host of improvements,
including a significantly improved range of defenses for
both inbound and outbound threats. And yet, all this
power comes with the same straightforward, easy to use
interface BlackICE users have come to depend upon.
BlackICE™ PC Protection now offers Application
Protection, a new feature designed to shield PCs,
laptops and workstations from hijack by an attacker, and
protect users from Trojan horse applications, worms and
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BlackICE's Application Protection quickly and invisibly
defeats dangerous attack programs delivered through
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Description of the Windows XP Internet Connection Firewall (Q320855)
Internet Connection Firewall is software that you can
use to set restrictions on the information that is
communicated between your home or small office network
and the Internet.
If your network uses Internet Connection Sharing (ICS)
to provide Internet access to multiple computers, it is
a good idea to turn on Internet Connection Firewall on
the shared Internet connection. However, you can turn on
Internet Connection Sharing and Internet Connection
Firewall separately. It is a good idea to turn on
Internet Connection Firewall on the Internet connection
on any Windows XP-based computer that is connected
directly to the Internet.
Internet Connection Firewall can also protect a single
computer that is connected to the Internet. If you have
a single computer that is connected to the Internet with
a cable modem, a DSL modem, or a dial-up modem, Internet
Connection Firewall protects your Internet connection.
Do not turn on Internet Connection Firewall for virtual
private network (VPN) connections because Internet
Connection Firewall interferes with file sharing and
other VPN functions.
Internet Connection Firewall is a "stateful"
firewall. A stateful firewall is one that monitors all
aspects of the communications that cross its path and
inspects the source and destination address of each
message that the firewall handles. To prevent
unsolicited traffic from the public side of the
connection from entering the private side, Internet
Connection Firewall keeps a table of all of the
communications that have originated from the computer
that is running Internet Connection Firewall. For a
single computer, Internet Connection Firewall tracks
traffic that originates from the computer. If you use
Internet Connection Firewall in conjunction with
Internet Connection Sharing, Internet Connection
Firewall tracks all of the traffic that originates from
the computer that is running Internet Connection
Firewall and Internet Connection Sharing, and tracks all
of the traffic that originates from private network
computers. Internet Connection Firewall compares all
inbound traffic from the Internet to the entries in the
table. Inbound Internet traffic is permitted to reach
the computers in your network only if there is a
matching entry in the table that shows that the
communication exchange began in your computer or private
network.
It is not a good idea to turn on Internet Connection
Firewall on any connection that does not directly
connect to the Internet. IF you turn on Internet
Connection Firewall for the network adapter of a client
computer that is running Internet Connection Sharing,
Internet Connection Firewall interferes with some
communications between that computer and all other
computers on the network. For a similar reason, you
cannot use the Network Setup Wizard to turn on Internet
Connection Firewall on the Internet Connection Sharing
host private connection. This is the connection that
connects the Internet Connection Sharing host computer
with the Internet Connection Sharing client computers.
Turning on a firewall in this location would completely
prohibit network communications.
You can use the Internet Connection Firewall security
logging feature to create a security log of firewall
activity. Internet Connection Firewall can log both
traffic that is permitted and traffic that is rejected.
For example, incoming echo requests from the Internet
are not permitted by Internet Connection Firewall by
default. If the Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP)
Allow incoming echo request setting is not turned on,
the inbound request does not succeed, and a log entry
that notes the unsuccessful inbound attempt is
generated.
Click here
for the article.
The Internet Connection Firewall Can Prevent Browsing and File Sharing (Q298804)
When you enable the Internet Connection Firewall (ICF)
feature, and then attempt to browse the Internet by
means of My Network Places , you are unsucessful. Also,
if you use the net view \\ computername command, you can
receive the following error message:
System error 6118 has occurred. The list of servers for
this workgroup is not currently available.
This behavior can occur because the ICF closes, by
default, the ports for file sharing. The Master Browser
attempts to reconnect to the client computer to send the
Browse list, but the firewall prevents this reconnection
attempt.
Click here
for the article.
HOW TO: Enable or Disable Internet Connection Firewall in Windows XP (Q283673)
Microsoft Windows XP provides Internet security in the
form of a firewall, known as the Internet Connection
Firewall (ICF). This feature is designed for home and
small business use and provides protection for computers
directly connected to the Internet. This feature is
available for local area network (LAN) or dial-up
connections. It also prevents scanning of ports and
resources (file and printer shares) from external
sources. This article discusses how to enable the
Internet Connection Firewall feature to provide Internet
security for your computer. This article also discussed
how to disable the Internet Connection Firewall feature,
which may help in troubleshooting some applications that
do not function as expected behind a firewall.
The Internet Connection Firewall is useful when you want
to protect a dial-up connection when dialing directly
into an Internet service provider (ISP), or to protect a
LAN connection that is connected to an asymmetric
digital subscriber line (ADSL) or cable modem. You can
also enable the Internet Connection Firewall feature on
the Internet connection of an ICS host computer to
provide protection to the ICS host computer.
Click here
for the article.
Internet Connection Firewall Does Not Block Internet Protocol Version 6 Traffic (Q306203)
With Microsoft Internet Protocol version 6 installed and
Internet Connection Firewall enabled, Internet Protocol
version 4 traffic is filtered by the firewall but
Internet Protocol version 6 traffic is not blocked.
Internet Connection Firewall is Internet Protocol
version 4 only, so it does not block Internet Protocol
version 6 or other protocols.
This behavior is by design.
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for the article.
Norton Personal Firewall 2.5 and Internet Security 3.0 Do Not Work in Windows XP (Q308324)
After you install any of the following programs and then
restart your computer, you may be unable to log on and
see the desktop:
Norton Personal Firewall 2000 2.5
Norton Personal Firewall 2001 3.0
Norton Internet Security 2000 2.5
Norton Internet Security 2001 3.0
When this occurs, no error message may be displayed.
The products described in the "Symptoms"
section of this article use filter drivers that are not
compatible with Windows XP.
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for the article.
Windows XP: TCP/IP Functionality and Internet Connectivity Are Disrupted When You Uninstall McAfee Personal Firewall (Q316522)
After you uninstall McAfee Personal Firewall, one or
more of the following issues may occur:
- You are unable to view Web pages.
- You are unable to ping URL addresses.
- When you issue the ipconfig /renew command, you
receive the following error message:
An error occurred while renewing interface local area connection: an operation was attempted on something that is not a socket.
This behavior occurs if you remove Personal Firewall
from your computer through the Add/Remove Programs tool
in the Control Panel.
Click here
for the article.
Remote Assistance May Not Connect to a Multiple-Homed Windows XP Computer with the Personal Firewall Feature Enabled (Q308210)
When you use a multiple-homed Windows XP-based computer
with the Personal Firewall feature enabled, remote users
may not be able to connect to the computer in response
to a Remote Assistance request.
Also, if you are using a Windows XP-based computer with
one network adapter and a modem with the Personal
Firewall feature enabled, Remote Assistance does not
open the firewall port on the modem connection.
This problem occurs because Remote Assistance opens the
firewall port only on the first bound network adapter of
the multiple-homed computer.
Click here
for the article.
How to Manually Open Ports in Internet Connection Firewall in Windows XP (Q308127)
This article contains the steps to manually open ports
in Internet Connection Firewall (ICF) in Windows XP.
Programs may potentially require ports to be manually
opened so that they function properly when ICF is in use
either on the local computer or on the gateway computer.
You may have to use this procedure if there is a service
that is running on a computer that has ICF enabled that
you want to make available to users on the Internet.
Click here
for the article.
Programs Require Manual Port Configurations with Internet Connection Firewall (Q307554)
This article lists some programs that require you to
manually open ports so that the programs can work
correctly. To work correctly, some programs need to have
specific ports open so that traffic can pass through the
Internet Connection Firewall.
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for the article.
Internet Programs May Not Work as Expected with the Internet Connection Firewall Enabled (Q308123)
When you attempt to use certain Internet programs, you
may experience any of the following symptoms:
- You cannot host a Battlezone II game, but you can join a hosted game.
- When you use ICQ99a, you cannot receive files from another ICQ client.
- You cannot host Unreal Tournament games on the Internet. Other computers on the Internet cannot connect to the Unreal Tournament server. However, another computer on your local area network (LAN) can connect.
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for the article.
Service Redirection Does Not Apply to Internet Connection Firewall (Q297942)
In Windows XP, the Internet Connection Firewall (ICF)
and Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) features share a
common interface for configuring services to which
Internet users can gain access. With ICS, you can map
services to hosts on the internal network, but ICF does
not provide this functionality. ICF uses the service
information to determine which services to allow through
the firewall, but disregards the information that
specifies which host should receive traffic for the
given service. Therefore, if only ICF is enabled,
traffic is allowed for the specified service to pass
through the firewall and make a connection to the
external interface. If the specified service is not
listening on the external interface of the Windows XP
ICF host, the connection does not work. If you are
trying to redirect a service to an internal host, you
must enable ICS.
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for the article.
Domain Policy to Stop the Use of ICS or ICF Stops Services (Q314592)
When a group policy prohibits the use of the Internet
Connection Firewall (ICF) or Internet Connection Sharing
(ICS), these services cannot stay on.
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for the article.
Creating a Bridge with Two Internal Adapters on a Windows XP Internet Connection Sharing Host Does Not Work (Q309640)
When you attempt to create a bridge by using two
adapters on a Windows XP-based Internet Connection
Sharing (ICS) host, the following error message may be
displayed:
An unexpected error occurred while configuring the Network Bridge
This behavior occurs if all of the following conditions
exist:
- The computer has at least three network connections.
- One of the adapters that you use in trying to create the bridge is the internal (also called private) ICS connection. This adapter has an IP address of 192.168.0.1.
- The second adapter that you use in trying to create the bridge is not the public ICS connection.
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for the article.
BlackICE Defender Causes an Error Message in Windows XP (Q321979)
When you are using the Internet Security Systems "BlackICE
Defender" program, you may receive the following
error message:
- blackd.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.
If the error message is still displayed and you want to
see the data that the error report contains, click the
click here link at the bottom of the message box. You
then see error signature information that may be similar
to the following:
App name App version Module name Module version Offset
--------------------------------------------------------------
blackd.exe 3.0.53.9 unknown 0.0.0.0 00000000
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for the article.