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Windows Firewall won't disable

I have a single computer on a 2Wire 1800HG DSL gateway, no other computers connected to the gateway. The computer has two network connections -- Ethernet (DSL) and Dialup. I recently upgraded from SP1 to SP2 for Windows XP Home. The computer was free of viruses (per CA and NAV scans) and spyware/malware (per Ad-aware scans) before the upgrade and it remains that way.

My intention was to have Windows Firewall enabled for the rarely-used Dialup connection but disabled for the DSL connection, relying on the hardware firewall in my DSL gateway for the DSL connection. That is the way I had XP SP1 configured and it appeared to do what I expected.

With Windows Firewall ON but with network connections enabled/disabled as described above, now I get popups saying two programs (hpstatus and javaw) have been blocked during startup. Both seem harmless. The same thing happens even if I disable the firewall for both network connections. If I run hpstatus.exe after (instead of during) startup, it is blocked even if I run it after getting the nag balloon about the firewall being OFF.

The only way to avoid blocking is to turn OFF the Windows Firewall, which was not my intention.

Is this the way Windows Firewall is supposed to work? I have never seen it described as working this way.

Reply to
Russell May
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Add Program button and add the programs to the Exceptions Block List.

Duane :)

Reply to
Duane Arnold

Well you can't simply rely on the firewall on your DSL router as it doesn't filter the outbound traffic ,and I found the WindowsXP firewall is bit of confusing for managing ,I recommend disabling the WindowsXP firewall and install a good firewall like Zonealarm ,Sygate or BlackIce ,and you will then have the ability of controlling and monitoring all the outbound and incoming traffic.

Reply to
NightLegend

True, but it ignores the main question. See a similar thread in microsoft.public.windows.networking.firewall A response there brought boot-time security mode into focus, but did not resolve another part of the question. Part of my comments there: "Apparently the firewall works anytime it is ON ... regardless of whether it is disabled for the network connection being used ..."

Reply to
Russell May

You will have to read previous messages in the thread to get the whole story because the latest build of Agent now automatically snips them.

I don't want to disable the firewall completely. I wanted to leave it enabled for the Dialup connection. Right now the firewall is ON but disabled for all network connections. It still blocks hpstatus when it is run after the firewall has oomplained about being OFF.

Reply to
Russell May

Yeah that's true ,If you disable the WindowsXP firewall for certain connection it will still be active ,however you can disable it completely from the Security center link in control panel if you are using SP2.

Reply to
BlueGalaxy

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