How to open firewall log file in Vista home premium?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Rob
  • Start date Start date
R

Rob

I have enabled dropped packet logging in Vista Windows Firewall (Advanced
Security).When I try to open the log file pfirewall.log it comes back Access
Denied. I am logged in as Administrator so that doesnt seem to be the
reason.Have tried opening in notepad and wordpad but no good.
Any clues about how I can read the file?
 
Rob said:
I have enabled dropped packet logging in Vista Windows Firewall (Advanced
Security).When I try to open the log file pfirewall.log it comes back
Access
Denied. I am logged in as Administrator so that doesnt seem to be the
reason.Have tried opening in notepad and wordpad but no good.
Any clues about how I can read the file?
Click to expand...

Some say Take File Ownership of a file in Vista. I have never done that.
What I do is use the Authenticated User group on the directory where the
file is located with the proper access rights. It's has never failed to
grant me access rights to a file, even as admin.
 
Tks Mr Arnold.Thought I was ok for a while.I dont think you can create User
Groups in home editions ?? but I was able to set myself as the person to Take
Ownership of this file but it still said access denied.The file is located at
c\windows\system32\logfiles\firewall\pfirewall.log
 
Rob said:
Tks Mr Arnold.Thought I was ok for a while.I dont think you can create
User
Groups in home editions ?? but I was able to set myself as the person to
Take
Ownership of this file but it still said access denied.The file is located
at
c\windows\system32\logfiles\firewall\pfirewall.log
Click to expand...

Authenticated User group should already be there on the O/S that's Win NT
based using NTFS, just like the Everyone User group is already there for
you to use.

You should be able to go to that directory and set the security by
directory or a file in the directory.

You should be able to enter Authenticated User into the user box, Check it
to verify it, and then set the permissions for it.

While you're there, you might want to see if the Everyone User group in on
the file with different rights on the file from your admin user rights,
which will supersede your rights even as admin. Authenticated user will do
the same, that is, it will supersede rights of all other accounts.

So, whatever rights your admin account has, the Everyone or Authenticated
user must match the admin account, otherwise, *permission denied*, because
of user account rights and their permissions.

Some account on the file or the directory is superseding your admin rights,
causing permission denied.

You may also need to use Run as Administor on the Notepad short-cut too, to
access the file with the proper rights.
 
Thanks again Mr Arnold. I only turned firewall logging on out of interest.I
am going to turn it off again and stop wasting both of our time.Looked up
Everyone User group in the help and it says local user groups not available
in Vista home editions. It is all getting too complicated and beyond my
knowledge.I am not much beyond the "open this select that double click
etc".Anyway tks again.
 
Back
Top