Windows Vista Firewall

I spent the afternoon with the TechNet Team talking about new features of Windows Vista!  We had a great time!  One of the features I wanted to share with you concerns some of the changes Microsoft has made to the Windows Firewall.  One of the requests that I have heard at my live events over and over again is

“Why doesn’t the Windows Firewall allow for both inbound and outbound filtering?”

Wahoo! I am proud to announce that the windows Firewall that is included with the current CTP of Windows Vista has the ability to do both inbound and outbound filtering.  Lets not stop here.  The filtering capabilities are great but the product team took it to the next level and added the ability to use profile based filtering as well. 

The Windows Vista Firewall is still configured in its basic operations through the control panel applett.  If you want to configure the advanced settings like inbound/outbound filtering and filtering based on profile you will need to know a little secret.  Here it is!

The Windows Vista operating system uses Microsoft Management Console.  (You can start this by typing “mmc” at the run line.  Once Management console is running you will go to the file menu and choose add/remove snap in.  Scroll through the available snap ins and find the Windows Firewall Snap in.  Once added to the console you will see the options to add inbound and outbound references to be filtered.  You will also get the options to do some additional filtering based on things like the profile. 

I am so pleased that Microsoft has included this much needed feature to allow the home user the ability to enhance the quality of their network communications.  I am in process of a podcast on the subject so you can see the product in action.  Watch the blog early next week for the release of the podcast.  Have a great weekend!