Use Windows Firewall to Block ports

Easy: everything that is not enabled is blocked.

Oh, you want to block outbound connections. The Windows-Firewall doesn't do that. If you don't want iTunes traffic: why are your users allowed to use iTunes in the first place?

If you're only concerned about the traffic volume I'd suggest to do traffic shaping on the border router.

cu

59cobalt

If you're trying to stop outbound on XP's FW, then you can't do it.

You can run IPsec in conjection with XP's FW to stop inbound or outbound traffic on a port.

Ther is nothing wrong with iTunes. Unlike Kazaa or Grokser, everything available on iTines is legal and licensed, so there is no potential legal problems with iTunes.

Chilly, you idiot - what part of "eating up all my bandwidth" didn't you understand.

To block ITunes you need to have a firewall, not the windows firewall, but a firewall to block access to the internet. You can also create a script to remove the ITunes application from their machines - since they really have no business with ITunes being installed on a company computer.

As far as Net radio goes, just about any MP3 (as long as there is no DRM on it) file or stream that can be heard on iTunes will also work on Windows Media Player.

But as far as proxies go, I have just gotten a taste of what to expect on "Cyber Monday" in America. My proxy was SWAMPED a while ago with people getting a jump on their Christmas shopping, and using my proxy to access shopping sites from work, with enough of a load to break the proxy software on my server. And nearly all the traffic came from corporate networks all over the eastern USA. People were going to every shopping site imagaineable, from their work PCs. My proxy barfed on the exessive load it got from people accessing shopping sites from work. I had a peak load of 368, at about 9:03 AM US Eastern time, going to shopping sites, and nearly all of it coming from corporate networks in the eastern USA.

I can just IMAGINE the load my proxy will get next Monday, during "Cyber Monday", when more people log on to shopping sites, from work, than any other day of the year.

Anyone else running a public anonymity proxy better get ready for unusually high loads on "Cyber Monday", as people attempt to bypass company firewalls to do their Christmas shopping. I am sure that the E-tailers LOVE people like me that run public anonymity proxies, because it means more people can access their sites, which means more money for them.

you can use IPSec (without disabling the windows firewall) to create a port filtering policy which you may then assign to the desired PCs as an example, have a look here

using IPSec you'll be able to perform "outbound filtering" (the plain vanilla XP firewall hasn't this capability) so, setting up blocking rules for the undesired ports/protocol you'll be able to filter out them w/o any need to install other s/w on the machines