Disabling Firewall

[BGood]

In securing XP prior to SP-2, we disabled the Internet Connection Firewall
(now Windows Firewall) by setting the service to "disabled". (We have other
firewalls in place.) In doing so, we never had any problems. Now,
disabling the Windows Firewall causes the "Computer Browser" service to
crash. We found that we could only keep the Computer Browser service
running if the Windows Firewall Service was running. This was true with the
firewall enabled, so long as the File and Print Sharing exception was turned
on. Alternately, we could disable the firewall (via Group Policy or netsh).
In any event the Windows Firewall Service must run for the Computer Browser
service to run correctly.

As a general rule, and according even to Microsoft, unneeded services should
be disabled or removed. I am curious if there is any documentation in
existence that states the new connection between the Windows Firewall
service and the Computer Browser service. I have seen nothing that
explicitly states that WF service MUST RUN for the CB service to run! And
it is NOT on the dependencies tab for either service.

Comments?

 

[OMaurizio]

In securing XP prior to SP-2, we disabled the Internet Connection Firewall
(now Windows Firewall) by setting the service to "disabled". (We have other
firewalls in place.) In doing so, we never had any problems. Now,
disabling the Windows Firewall causes the "Computer Browser" service to
crash. We found that we could only keep the Computer Browser service
running if the Windows Firewall Service was running. This was true with the
firewall enabled, so long as the File and Print Sharing exception was turned
on. Alternately, we could disable the firewall (via Group Policy or netsh).
In any event the Windows Firewall Service must run for the Computer Browser
service to run correctly.

As a general rule, and according even to Microsoft, unneeded services should
be disabled or removed. I am curious if there is any documentation in
existence that states the new connection between the Windows Firewall
service and the Computer Browser service. I have seen nothing that
explicitly states that WF service MUST RUN for the CB service to run! And
it is NOT on the dependencies tab for either service.

Comments?

I actually have firewall service disabled on XP PRO SP2 (italian) and
no problems with any other service.
Maurizio