Windows Security Center [indicates firewall ON, Manage says Off?]

I have McAfee as my Firewall and Antivirus Protection. When I go to the Windows Security Center it shows the Windows Firewall as being "On ". But when I click on the "Manage" tab it shows it as off. Which one can I believe? I dont want two firewalls running. Thanks

 

Hello trekman,

If you want to see whether WF is running or not, enable WF's logging which is off by default.

Control Panel > Security Center > Windows Firewall > Advanced tab > Security Logging > Settings > in the log settings dialog box: check "Log dropped Packets" and click the save as bar: \WINDOWS\pfirewall.log. That log is accessible with Notepad.

And keep that option enabled even if WF is not running. WF was designed to start up automatically if a 3rd party firewall is disabled.

If you find that WF is running while McAfee is running, then go into XP's Services and shut WF's service off. But keep in mind what I wrote about WF's taking over in case McAfee's is disabled.

Start > Run > type services.msc > ok. Scroll down to Windows Firewall, double click on the line. In the dialog box, change Startup type's drop down menu to Disabled > apply.

Regards - Charles