I have a third party firewall that works just fine. I actually have a shortcut to windows firewall that I have to use every day to shut it down. It will occasionally start up and stop things like updating games, or even allowing normal shit to go through. If I go to .msc and shut it down it then kills my third party firewall. This is Windows 10 64bit. It is seriously pissing me off. It even restarted in the middle of a multi-gig game update and fucked the file. Do I have any other options?
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10/turn-windows-firewall-on-or-off
I take it this doesn’t work?
Just curious, why would you use a 3rd party firewall? What’s wrong with the one that’s built in?
Windows Firewall is a service, you can go to Windows Key+R to bring up the Run dialog, type Services.msc and hit the W’s to find the Windows Firewall service, right click and set it to Disabled. Then stop it. It won’t start again.
I have to echo Gordon’s question though, there isn’t really a reason to turn it off. The two firewalls can even work together, the only problem there is having to unblock ports on both firewall software solutions here and there, but that’s pretty rare these days in my experience anyway.
Like I said, when I turn it off in services.msc it also kills my other firewall for some reason. I turn it off because it doesn’t allow certain games to update. Strangely enough, Edge won’t run with it on. Not that I use Edge, I was just checking it out.
As others have noted, Firewall is a service and many third parties build on top of it. So if you disable a dependency of third parties then those third parties won’t work.
But it sounds weird that certain games can’t update. Or Edge. Some other configuration problem, maybe?
That first part certainly clarifies things, thanks. As far as a config issue, it’s been that way since I upgraded to Win 10.
If you take the third party firewall out of the equation and leave Windows Firewall running, does said game update? I’ve never had such a problem, but I only use Windows Firewall on my gaming PC. What game is it?
Still happens. Right now it’s War Thunder and The Marvel Heroes Test Center. Yet not the regular Marvel Heroes game client.
Hm… odd. I’ve never encountered anything like this. How sure are you it’s a firewall issue?
Well, when I turn Win Firewall off, things work. When it’s on they don’t. I can’t think of what else it could be.
That’s pretty damn conclusive, I’d say.
Have you tried adding the specific game and launcher .exe files to the Firewall exception list? (Windows Search, “Allow an app through Windows Firewall…”)
Yeah, while the workaround is okay, I hate to leave things unfinished. I’ll be looking under the hood later on. Thanks for all your help, Scott.
Edit: So. Allowed the War Thunder Launcher.exe and it runs fine. Allowed four different .exes in Marvel Heroes Test Center and still no joy. Guess it’s time to hit the innertubes and look for ideas.
A common reason is just an easier way to set outbound rules. There are addons for the Windows Firewall to ease rule creation as well (though the two better ones aren’t free), but something like Comodo (free) is just plug and play, as much as any highly customizable firewall can be. And usually, it is highly recommended to never have two firewalls running at once. Most 3rd party firewalls will correctly disable the Windows Firewall when installed.
Finally got things working. Lot’s of executables in the Test Center. Found Waldo and gave it permissions. Thanks again for the help folks. Ultimately it was laziness on my part.