Vista Firewall- Here's how to BLOCK outgoing dial outs!

Turn firewall ON, then to set outbound parameters, go into the management panel. Click Start>>Control Panel. Double-click Administrative Tools>>Windows Firewall with Advanced Security.

In the Overview section, click Windows Firewall Properties. You’ll get a dialog box with tabs for the Domain, Private and Public profiles. (The use of profiles will trip some people up.)

When you connect to a network, Vista asks if it is a work, home or public network. Depending on your selection, Vista applies a different security profile. For example, selecting home as your location applies the private profile to your firewall settings.

If you want to block outbound connections for all profiles, you must change the settings on each tab. For “Outbound connections,” select Block. After you set the options for each profile, click Apply and OK.

When you block all outbound transmissions, nothing can reach the Internet. That includes browsers and e-mail programs. Obviously, that’s impractical. However, you can set up rules to allow certain programs to access the Internet. I did so for Internet Explorer.

In the Windows Firewall with Advanced Security window, I clicked Outbound Rules in the left column. That produced a list of rules that Microsoft has created. I strongly recommend that you do not mess with these. That is, unless you’re certain of what you’re doing.

To create a new rule, I clicked New Rule under Actions. A wizard appeared that walked me through the process. I selected Program on the first screen. Then, I clicked Next.

I selected “This program path” and clicked Browse. In my case, the Open window opened in System 32. That is a subfolder of Windows. I needed to move up the folder tree. To do that, I twice clicked the Up One Level button. That’s two buttons to the right of the Look In box. That took me to Local Disk (C).

I then double-clicked Program Files>>Internet Explorer>>iexplore.exe. That filled the box in the wizard. I clicked Next and selected “Allow the connection.” I clicked Next. I selected all three profiles and clicked Next. I entered the name Internet Explorer Rule and left the description box blank. I clicked Finish. Windows entered the rule at the top of the Outbound Rules list.

So, although I had opted to block all outbound connections, Internet Explorer was now an exception. Of course, that’s just one program. You’d need to do the same for any program that accesses the Internet: e-mail, antivirus updates, anti-spyware updates, etc., etc., etc.

You’ll have to figure out which programs need rules. Windows will not prompt you to grant a program Web access.

More info/source document here: http://www.komando.com/tips/index.aspx?id=2973

 

exactly, this is the other big reason why vista outbound allow/not allow is, in its current form, a big joke. Once one sets up this rule, the app/process in question will be forever "banned". Comparing to ZA or comodo (just some examples), users can define when it is not being allowed to go out, and the blocking.out is good for the session until its next try to access the net, where there may be the need to access the net to be granted.

the other big reason is of course, as WeAreNotAlone just went thru with the description, a pain in the derriere to go thru the rules and all for set.up

for corporate tech and installers, it is probably a good tool to to make it uniform for office.users, but for home.users -> it is quite a no no

cheers ...

 

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Yep... but at least by doing the above programs can't as easily dial home...

You can also do it via group polices (I think).
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But it doesnt stop Vista itself from phoning home, does it?

 

true

i still try to find out in what level of comm to apply the block. So far, may be i m not understanding the structure correctly, but either it would knock out my internet or it would make it real slow moving page to page. There is not yet a comprehensive guide as how to use this.

Sure i can block winamp per example not to go on.line when i use it to play local media files, but when it must gets on.line for a streamed media, then i m sol - i must go back and remove the block, quite a pain.

i turned my automatic update off, and use a port scanner app to look after the ports. so far, other when i use windows tools/apps (wmp per ex.), i have not seen any "phone home" phenomenen from vista at all - other than the normal generic.host.processer (same as under xp). Using skype or yahoomsg, i can see that these apps sending "call home" signal during idle stage, not with vista so far, at least in my environment (but i would not be surprised if it does)

cheers ...

 

What port scanner app do you use?

 

http://www.snapfiles.com/screenshots/servercheckstd.htm
turn on xp mode and admin for vista

cheers ...

 

found an interesting piece of info direct from m$
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...9b-3328-4350-ade1-c0d9289f09ef&DisplayLang=en

cheers ...