Widows Firewall

[Mick]

Hi

I have 3 PCs on a LAN and connect to the internet via a firewall router, is
it necessary to also use the windows firewall as well. Are there any
advantages/disadvantages?

 

[Guest]

By right you should be pretty safe with the hardware firewall, but if you
were to ask my opinion i would suggest either enabling the xp firewall too or
install a third party firewall like ZA.

 

[Bob Willard]

Hi

I have 3 PCs on a LAN and connect to the internet via a firewall router, is
it necessary to also use the windows firewall as well. Are there any
advantages/disadvantages?

A (normal) router will give you protection against nasty inbound
traffic, but no help against outbound traffic. WF will give you
protection against nasty inbound traffic, but no help against
outbound traffic. ZA will give you protection against nasty
inbound traffic *and* against outbound traffic. So, using
router+WF is redundant, while using router+ZA makes sense; that
must be why I use ZA on my PCs behind my router.

 

[Steve Winograd [MVP]]

Hi

I have 3 PCs on a LAN and connect to the internet via a firewall router, is
it necessary to also use the windows firewall as well. Are there any
advantages/disadvantages?

It's not necessary to the Windows Firewall, but it has an advantage.
If one computer becomes infected with something like the Blaster worm,
Windows Firewall can prevent the infection from spreading to the other
computers. The firewall router doesn't give that type of protection,
and typical firewall programs (e.g. ZoneAlarm) don't, either.

There's no disadvantage to using Windows Firewall, provided that it's
configured with exceptions for all services (e.g. File and Printer
Sharing, Remote Desktop) that you use on the LAN.
--
Best Wishes,
Steve Winograd, MS-MVP (Windows Networking)

Please post any reply as a follow-up message in the news group
for everyone to see. I'm sorry, but I don't answer questions
addressed directly to me in E-mail or news groups.

Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Program
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com

 

[Mick]

Thanks everyone, it looks like the consensus is to use both.

Thanks again

Mick