The latter runs, in the default “Automatic” mode, whether or not you’ve turned on the former. One of my points above was that the Windows Firewall is not the same as the “Windows Firewall / ICS” system service. How early? What period of time? From when XP is loaded before the initial log-in screen? From before the OS is selected? And where are you getting this information? I’d like to see some explicit guidance from MS itself, allowing or urging such double software firewalls against what its own OS advises, before I consider trying it. “Not really” has a meaning here for you, methinks, that no other commentator on the Net seems to have brought up as yet. So, you are not really running two firewalls simultaneously.ĭespite what XP itself is telling me? I’m supposed to ignore the Security Center’s explicit warnings? Why, then, would Microsoft make them display through at least two Service Pack updates? Windows will let the third party firewall take over those duties when the third party firewall notifies Windows that it is ready to do so. If you install a third party firewall that properly communicates with Windows there is no reason to disable the Windows firewall. Why ask for such trouble? Communications has its hooks into far more corners of the system than I want to risk messing with. Granted, it is generally a relatively short period of time that your system could be unprotected but it is there and that is why you should leave the Windows firewall alone.Įxactly. At that time, Windows has no idea about any third party firewall so no third party firewall is started. This happens fairly early in the boot process. The Windows firewall is started when the networking services are started. So, you are not really running two firewalls simultaneously. Windows will let the thrid party firewall take over those duties when the third party firewall notifies Windows that it is ready to do so. Running multiple firewalls is strongly discouraged because of the real time nature of the communications activity and the potential for creating deadlocks when more than one high priority process is trying to access the same resources. XP’s Security Center does not show any built-in “preference” for the Windows Firewall - which may have started with the legal pressures that brought about XP’s Service Pack 1. I also seriously doubt that Microsoft would strongly advise turning off any and all additional firewalls, if a feature of its own product offered unique protections. Given that Comodo activates for each user before that user can even begin to use XP, I really don’t see the practical difference. The only distinction I can see is that Comodo’s firewall runs for each logged-on user (the process “cfp.exe”), whereas the Windows Firewall isn’t listed as a separate process in Task Manager. And at the same time as the “Windows Firewall / ICS” system service, which runs in “Automatic” mode whether or not you’ve actually turned on the Windows Firewall. Not even when Comodo’s firewall is loaded as an XP background service before the Windows user interface appears, at the same time as anti-virus real-time scanning services. You’re suggesting that the built-in Windows Firewall provides a unique level of protection, one that no other product can create. Security Center will recognize, in real time, that either no, one (by name), or multiple firewalls are running. I normally use Comodo’s pre-security-suite firewall (v3.0.25.378). Why, then, would XP’s Security Center applet (and its linked XP Help Center topic) so strenously insist that one should not run multiple firewalls?Īs it did just now, when I temporarily re-activated Windows Firewall. You should NOT disable the Windows firewall as it protects your PC during the boot process before the third party firewall is loaded and initialized. Since XP SP2 and maybe SP1 (I can’t remember that far back), a properly written third party firewall will notify Windows when it is initialized and ready to take over for the Windows firewall. Disabling the Windows firewall is definitely the wrong move now.
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