Win XP SP2

[Guest]

Will the new SP2 personal firewall function with a hardware firewall and a
Norton Person Firewall?

I have a Netgear FR114P Router Firewall. I believe it is called a NAR
firewall. When I first installed it last year, I was told by the Netgear
Techs to disable the WinXP Firewall because the two may not function well
together since one was hardware and the other was software. I am now
running Norton Internet Security 2004 with the Personal Firewall active.
Norton's Techs told me there will be no conflict with the haardware firewall
and there has been none that I can tell.

I am curious how a third firewall with two being software firewalls.

 

[Jerry]

It is not recommended to have more than ONE firewall in use at the same
time. The hardware firewall is probably the better selection.

 

[cpnet]

I don't know if this is true... My hardware router/firewall blocks against
incoming connections, but it allows anything to go out over http/https. I
also have ZoneAlarm running. It is able to watch every bit of software to
see what is/isn't connecting, and I can decide what each program can/can't
do in terms of local and web access. A hardware firewall (or a firewall on
a different machine, say a server) can't do this. But, the hardware
firewall prevents a lot of incoming stuff from even getting to my PC,
accessing OS vulnerabilities or holes in the software firewall. I think
having both is a good idea. If you know how each firewall works, and how to
set them up, extra firewalls can make you safer. Having said that, I expect
you may have problems running multiple software firewalls on the same
machine, but as long as you only have one software firewall running per
machine, you should be ok having one or more additional hardware firewalls
(if they're configured correctly).

 

[Robert Moir]

Will the new SP2 personal firewall function with a hardware firewall
Yes

and a Norton Person Firewall?

Possibly not. Even if it doesn't cause any direct problems (e.g. crashes,
instability, etc) the fact is that running 2 software firewalls does nothing
for you, so if you are basically happy with the Norton firewall I'd switch
off the Microsoft one.

I have a Netgear FR114P Router Firewall. I believe it is called a NAR
firewall. When I first installed it last year, I was told by the
Netgear Techs to disable the WinXP Firewall because the two may not
function well together since one was hardware and the other was
software. I am now running Norton Internet Security 2004 with the
Personal Firewall active. Norton's Techs told me there will be no
conflict with the haardware firewall and there has been none that I
can tell.

I am curious how a third firewall with two being software firewalls.

Hardware and software firewalls can work well together. More than one
software firewall has the potential to cause a lot of problems, and it will
*definately* make setting up programs that you want to pass through your
firewalls, or troubleshooting an app that doesn't behave how you expect when
the firewalls are on *much* harder.

Rob
MS MVP