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Group Policy and XP firewall

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jakess

Technical User
Apr 17, 2000
418
ZA
It seems that our GP or something is turning on most XP sp2 firewalls settings on pc's.
We prefer the default to NO
Cant find any setting under GP on AD win 2000 server, believe its with 2003 server.
 
I've just knocked this up, and I've not tested it, but give this a crack. Should work.

Code:
CLASS MACHINE
CATEGORY !!FirewallSettings
    KEYNAME "Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Network Connections"
        POLICY !!DisableFirewall
        EXPLAIN !!DisableFirewallEXP
        VALUENAME "NC_PersonalFirewallConfig"
            VALUEON    NUMERIC 0
            VALUEOFF   NUMERIC 1
        END POLICY
END CATEGORY

[strings]
FirewallSettings="Firewall Configure"
DisableFirewall="Disable Firewall on Clients Machine"
DisableFirewallEXP="Enabling this setting will DISABLE the built in DNS Internet Connection Firewall feature of Windows XP Service Pack 2. LOW SECURITY \n \n Disabling this setting will ENABLE the firewall. HIGH SECURITY. \n \n \n This setting will be updated when the policy is refreshed, however, on its own, will not prohibit users from altering the settings for Windows Firewall manually. Make sure that you lock down users ability to alter system settings appropriately."

As I say, I haven't tested it, or even compiled it, but it should be mostly correct.
If you have no luck, let me know and I'll go through it.

USING TEMPLATES
Copy and paste the code into notepad on your server. Save the file as FirewallSettingsGP.adm, make sure you select "Save as File" is set to "ALL FILES" and NOT "text document". Save FirewallSettingsGP.adm to your servers c:\windows\inf directory.

Create a GPO to apply your settings to \ edit an existing GPO. This policy is part of Machine Settings. So, in the GPOE (Group Policy Object Editor), expand "Computer Configuration". Right Click on the Administrative Templates folder, click "Add\Remove Templates", click "Add". It should default to your c:\windows\inf folder (the default folder for GP adm files. If not, navigate to it. Highlight on FirewallSettingsGP.adm and click ok. You will be return to the previous window with a list of ADM files. Click OK. You will not see under Administrative Templates in your GPOE object tree browser your Firewall Settings Category Folder, expand this, and enable the policy "Disable Firewall on Client Machines"

If you need any help, please feel free to post back, or contact me from my profile page.

Hope this helps.

Neil J Cotton
njc Information Systems
Systems Consultant
 
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