Win XP firewall/port issue

I've turned off the win XP firewall. Disabled it in services. I have no router with firewall capabilities, just a cable modem. My isp does not block ports.

Why are all my ports still closed??

I have 2 network cards in my tower. One for the cable connection the other for the rest of my network. The cards are bridged. I'm just trying to open ports for remote access, but I can't open anything at all.

Any help is appreciated,

whiplashtony@hotmail.com

What's telling you that all the ports are closed? Check shields up at www.grc.com - this is normally reliable.

Are you sure that the cable modem isn't more than a modem and is closing the ports?

Do you have any other firewall software on your computer, apart from ICF - like ZoneAlarm etc?

Try removing the bridge in XP - then make sure that Internet Connection Firewall is disabled. Then check shields up again.

Thanks for the quick response. I use superscan, and I went to a similar site to shield up for the port checking.

when I get home tonight I'll disable the sharing and post the ports available. I specifically opened port 3389 when I attempted to turn on the win xp firewall (through the advanced settings tap, then selected remote desktop). This did nothing. To my surprise when I disabled the firewall completely, it was still not available.

I have a motorola surfboard cable modem, it doesn't have any firewall capabilities.

I'm pulling my hair out over this.

That's the way to do it, start from nothing and work up to see where the problem is. Disable the bridge and any sharing (this could be the problem, you never know), then double check that ICF is disabled on all connections, then check your ports again.

I disabled the share (no bridge), then tried to open port 3389. Its still showing its closed from the outside.

Am I missing something? I have win xp home edition and I read there is some limitations with remote desktop. But that shouldn't effect whether or not this port is available.

I can't connect from my laptop to the tower using terminal services so its definitely a configuration issue.

You said that you tried to open port 3389. You must therefore have a firewall running somewhere on the network, through which you are trying to open a port. If this is the built-in Internet Connection Firewall, disable this for a second, and disable all other firewalls. Just check that on shields up all ports are open, then you'll know that the firewall hasn't been configured properly.

With the firewall off, and no sharing of the connection (i.e. bridge disabled) a firewall scan still shows port 3389 closed.

I completely reinstalled home edition. There is no other firewall software on the computer.

Either I am missing some configuration, or other service running in xp that prevents ports opening or I'm going crazy. When I turn off the firewall all ports should be available.

Motorola surboard cable modem model 5100 (no firewall capabilities) and my cable company insists they do not use a firewall.

wtf

Do you have any antivirus software running on the computer?

nope

still can't figure it out ...

You say you are using XP home edition. I didn't think that this came with remote desktop. I thought this was only available in XP Pro. Are you sure that you even have remote desktop running, installed and enabled?

Its definitely there. And terminal services is running in services.

You can access a Windows XP Remote Desktop from any OS that supports a Terminal Services client. XP Home can act as the client in a Remote Desktop session; only Pro can be the server.

XP home still lists port 3389, remote desktop, as a service you can specifically open in the firewall.

Maybe this is a new "security" feature to not open ports even though you specifically configure it to do so. Any port for that matter.

I did install a copy of xp pro but I was having the same issue. I'm wondering if its because I just upgraded from home, instead of a reformat and clean install. I didnt' have a bootable copy of xp pro though, just a burned version from work which prevented a clean install.

Not looking forward to it .. but I guess I'll put a clean version of pro on and start over.

Where abouts in England are you from Edwin? My "mum" grew up on Norfolk. Since I grew up in the states I missed out on a cool accent ... Anyways thanks for following up on my posts and I'll let you know how the reinstall goes.

- Tony

You're right about remote desktop - only XP pro can be the host, but basically any version of Windows can be the client.

I've not really used the built-in firewall much, but I'd have thought that if you asked it to open a port, then it would have opened it. But then, that's computers for you

Even if you can't boot from the XP Pro disc, you can still do a clean install. Just run the disc in Windows and start the setup. Select the option for advanced options and tick the box which says something like choose partition. Then, after going through the first part of the installation, you'll be present with a screen where you can format your current drive (I think).

I'm in the central part of England, around Birmingham and Coventry. Hehehe - I'm glad you think our accent is "cool"

Hope the reinstall goes OK