I was very pleased to see that Vista offers a 2-way firewall capability
built-in to the OS, and, on the whole, I have just about managed to find my
way around setting it up properly (turning OFF outbound connections by
default!)

My question is this:-
with outbound connections turned off by default now (for safety), I need to
create specific rules for any application to which I want to grant internet
reachability. Many vendor apps contain confusingly named executables which
can run in parallel and require such access - I cannot find any
logging/monitoring capability in the Vista Firewall that will tell me when a
given PROCESS is trying and failing to connect to the internet - this
information would be essential when trying to debug allowing access to a
given .exe

any ideas?

magic144 wrote:
> I was very pleased to see that Vista offers a 2-way firewall capability
> built-in to the OS, and, on the whole, I have just about managed to find my
> way around setting it up properly (turning OFF outbound connections by
> default!)
>
> My question is this:-
> with outbound connections turned off by default now (for safety), I need to
> create specific rules for any application to which I want to grant internet
> reachability. Many vendor apps contain confusingly named executables which
> can run in parallel and require such access - I cannot find any
> logging/monitoring capability in the Vista Firewall that will tell me when a
> given PROCESS is trying and failing to connect to the internet - this
> information would be essential when trying to debug allowing access to a
> given .exe
>
> any ideas?


There are two interfaces for Vistas built-in firewall:

1) A simplified one accessed through the Control Panel that is the only
one most people see. Sphinx's Vista Firewall Control
http://sphinx-soft.com/Vista/) is a piece of freeware that makes the
Vista Firewall much more useful to the average user.

2) And the more advanced "Windows Firewall with Advanced Security
(WF.msc), accessed via the Start Menu's Administrative Tools folder, for
the experienced user who wants better control.


--

Bruce Chambers

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safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. -Bertrand Russell

thanks Bruce,

I had to use the advanced i/f to turn off the default outbund access (wf.msc)

however, I cannot see anywhere within said interface from which I can
identify per-process-based logging for denied outbound access attempts in the
case where I want to explicitly enable a particular application in future and
I don't know what .exe I should be allowing...



"Bruce Chambers" wrote:

> There are two interfaces for Vistas built-in firewall:
>
> 1) A simplified one accessed through the Control Panel that is the only
> one most people see. Sphinx's Vista Firewall Control
> http://sphinx-soft.com/Vista/) is a piece of freeware that makes the
> Vista Firewall much more useful to the average user.
>
> 2) And the more advanced "Windows Firewall with Advanced Security
> (WF.msc), accessed via the Start Menu's Administrative Tools folder, for
> the experienced user who wants better control.