ISF needed with Hardware Firewall?

[Glenn Rhodes]

I have a firewall/router from Linksys, do I need to
enable XP ICF feature?

 

[Doug Knox MS-MVP]

If you have a hardware firewall, and are running Windows XP SP1, then dual firewalls are redundant, as hardware firewalls and Windows firewall are both designed to stop incoming attacks.

Windows XP Service Pack 2 will introduce a firewall that also protects you by monitoring out bound traffic (trojans, virus's and the like), so that you're sure that the information that you're sending out on the internet is what you actually intend to.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Greetings --

Doug, where are you seeing that SP2's Windows Firewall will
monitor out-bound traffic? That's contrary to everything I've seen,
to date, and experienced.

Bruce Chambers
--
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Windows XP Service Pack 2 will introduce a firewall that also protects
you by monitoring out bound traffic (trojans, virus's and the like),
so that you're sure that the information that you're sending out on
the internet is what you actually intend to.

 

[Doug Knox MS-MVP]

If you turn it on, it will work very similar to Zone Alarm, and will ask if you want "program X" to access the internet, or your LAN. Some programs are populated by default. Right click your network connection and select Change Windows Firewall Settings. Specific Programs and/or Ports are added on the Exceptions tab.

XP RTM and XP SP1 did not have this capability.