by John Hewitt

Created on: February 05, 2010

Using Windows Vista firewall is not the top choice of many computer users. In fact they often download a different firewall and then disable the Windows Vista firewall completely. One of the main reasons for not using Windows Vista firewall is that although the inbound protection is good there seems to be no outbound protection. This means that anything on your computer that can make an internet connection could do so without Windows Vista firewall letting you know.

Unless you can ensure that everything on your computer is safe then it is vital that any firewall notifies you when an application or a program attempts to access the internet or to access files and systems within your computer itself.

There is a dismissal of Windows Vista firewall in some circles due to its outbound protection being minimal. However, there is a way of turning the Windows Vista firewall outbound protection on to protect your computer; yet this outbound protection is not that obvious at first.

Firstly go to ‘start’ and search for ‘MMC’ – without the quotation marks! open up the Microsoft management Console (MMC) then go to ‘File’ then ‘Add/Remove snap-in...’ then on the right scroll down and highlight ‘Windows firewall wi..’ (..with advanced security) click ‘Add’ then see that ‘Local Computer’ is highlighted finish.

You will see that the Windows Vista firewall is now in the centre of the console. By double clicking the Windows Vista firewall line you will then have access to the various profiles.

Below the public profile you will you will be able to click on ‘Windows fire wall properties’ and then be able to change the settings for outbound connections.

By blocking all outbound connections you will gain a huge amount of security however, you now have to create new rules for every connection that you wish to allow through.

In the Microsoft Management Console on the left you will see Windows firewall which you can then expand. Here you can double click ‘Outbound Rules’ and then on the right click on new rule. Here you can then follow the steps to allowing a program through the wall. Of course you can also do this through the control panel and going to the security section and clicking on ‘Allow a program through Windows firewall’.

The only downside here is that you need to manually allow programs through Windows Vista firewall either via the control panel or the MMC. However, you can at least see that Windows Vista firewall can be tweaked according to your needs and can be made more secure.

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