I have been asked to configure the Windows 7 Pro (64bit) firewall so it is 'locked down' as much as possible. Doing this is relatively straight forward for applications, but I'm haveing difficulty figuring out which of the default rules are really needed and which I can block. The main sticking point is that I am not conversent enough in the various protocols to be sure what some of these rules control without a long process of blocking one at a time and testing to see what, if anything, breaks. I had hoped to find some resource that gave some info on the default rules and what they actually did to help determine if they are needed or can be safely blocked. We have office desktops as well as laptops that will go out to remote locations so I also have to deal with Cisco VPN connections for Outlook and some other applications. Does anyone have any guidance or links that might point me in the right direction?

Hi, No such information can be found. Because every user needs different rules on their specified network. I suggest you leave with the default configurations and rules. If other rules are needed, please manually add. You can refer: Configuring the Windows Firewall to Allow SQL Server Access For more information regarding Windows Firewall please refer: How Windows Firewall Works 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.