A firewall is a system designed to reinforce the security of the data flowing between two networks, the internal network and the outside network, such as the Internet. It’s important to note that enabling a firewall may break some applications that use non-standard or uncommon ports. For these applications, you can relax the firewall settings and enable exceptions. For more information on these terms, see Securing Your Machine: Definitions.
Follow these steps to configure the firewall:
Click Start > Control Panel.
If “Switch to Classic View” appears in the
top-left of the window, select it to reveal the control panel.
Double-click Windows Firewall.
The Windows Firewall window appears.
Uncheck Don't allow exceptions and select the On radio button.
Select the Advanced tab.
Under Security Logging, click the Settings button. The Log Settings window will appear.
In the Log Settings window
Check Log dropped packets
Check Log successful connections
Enter 10240 for Size limit (KB):
Click OK to close the Log Settings window.
Select the Exceptions tab. Note: See the Definitions page for exception details.
Do the following:
Uncheck any program or service you DO NOT wish to accept incoming network connections.
Check any program or service you DO wish to accept incoming connections.
Check Display a notification when Windows Firewall blocks a program. Note: Advanced users, if you need to make changes to a service or program, select the program or service and click the Edit... button. A list of common ports can be found in the Definitions page.
Click OK to close the window and save all changes.
