I have a couple of W2k8 r2 EE servers with the firewall off. Some inbound rules are defined on the server but under the Monitoring -> Firewall nothing shows up. It's completely blank neither the manually created inbound rules or the default inbound rules. Also, a "netstat -ab" doesn't show the manual ports as "Listening" so it doesn't seem that they are applied. Under Windows Firewall Properties -> <any profile> -> Settings -> Customize, the "Apply local firewall rules" is set to "Yes(default)" (and its grayed out since it is set by GPO) I thought that setting is what allows the local rules to merge with any others. Any ideas why the default and manually rules are not showing up under the Monitoring tab and why the rules are apparently not being applied? Thanks

Hello, Please post in Windows Security forum. http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winserversecurity/threads Thanks

Hi, The Monitoring item is used to monitor the active firewall rules. If the firewall has been turned off, then it is normal that we do not see any rules in the item. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd421717(WS.10).aspx Thanks.This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.