i figured out how to do configure the advanced firewall settings, but now i
have another problem: firewall has turned itself off!
I subscribed to the 90-day trial ms onecare package.
the ms windows firewall seems to periodically, and without annunciation,
shut itself off: "windows firewall service is not running."
attempts to turn it on yield, "due to an unidentified problem, Windows
cannot display windows firewall settings"
it's set for "automatic upgrade," and automatic upgrade appears to be
functioning normally. yet, in an attempt to get it running by "kicking" it,
I pressed the manual upgrade button; this yielded, "Windows firewall
was unable to make the requested updates."
windows firewall has been problematical since the beginning (about 5-6 weeks
ago): i was on the phone with 2 ms techs for nearly 4 hours (countless
reboots) to have vista's "windows security center" recognize windows
firewall.
i recently downloaded, from RealNetwork Website, and installed - but never
actually used - Real Player. It was not until after i installed that i read
RealPlayer's eula. it says that "i agree" to have RealNetwork reconfigure my
firewall, open the udp port, install cookies from different companies
(Rhapsody, Mozilla, to name two), and certain other liberties (details elude
me at this moment).
thinking that there may be a connection between this instant windows
firewall incident and the RealPlayer bundled adware shenanigans, i
uninstalled RealPlayer (one day after i installed it) - notwithstanding that
windows firewall has, as i've said, ceased before.
do you think RealPlayer installed a piece of malware?
anyway, what can i do about getting windows firewall turned on? .... or
should i just disable windows firewall and uninstall the entire ms onecare
package? i've been told that packages consume a lot of resources and are,
pound-for-pound. significantly less effective than independent units. if you
recommend the latter strategy then please recommend products for the units:
antivirus, antispyware, registry cleaner, disk cleanup, disk defragmenter,
monitor for open ports, ...
many thanks.