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Enabling the Personal Firewall for Windows XP

A personal firewall is a piece of software installed on an end-user's PC which controls communications to and from the user's PC, permitting or denying communications based on a security policy. Both Windows XP and Mac OS X come with a preinstalled personal firewall that is very easy to activate.

  1. Open the start menu in the lower left corner -> select settings -> control panel.

    2. Picture of Windows Start Menu with Control Panel

  2. Double click windows firewall.

    In the General tab, select the radio button next to the green shield that says on.

    3. Picture of Firewall Panel

  3. Remember that if a program is going to access the internet you must give it permission via the firewall software. Select the Exceptions tab and check any programs that you want to access the internet. If you need programs that are not on the list click the Add program button.

    4. Picture of Firewall Exceptions Panel


There are a number of other firewall products on the market, make sure that you do not have 2 or more firewalls running on the same PC as this will cause all of the programs to malfunction.