This tutorial was written by Tom's Hardware Community member JamieKavanagh. You can find a list of all their tutorials here.
A firewall is an essential aspect of computing and no PC should ever be without one. That’s why Windows has one bundled and active as standard. Windows Firewall occasionally has to be told to let a program communicate with the network, which is where opening ports comes in. If you want to open firewall ports inWindows 10, here’s how you do it.
Firewalls are designed to protect a network from threats. Either threats from the outside trying to get in or threats from the inside trying to get out. It does this by blocking network-enabled ports. Every time a program tries to communicate through this port, the firewall checks its database of rules to see if it is allowed or not. If it doesn’t know, it asks you, which is why you sometimes see prompts asking you if a particular program is permitted to access the internet.
Open firewall ports in Windows 10 You can manually permit a program to access the internet by opening a firewall port. You will need to know what port it uses and the protocol to make this work.
Navigate to Control Panel, System and Security and Windows Firewall.
Select Advanced settings and highlight Inbound Rules in the left pane.
Right click Inbound Rules and select New Rule.
Add the port you need to open and click Next.
Add the protocol (TCP or UDP) and the port number into the next window and click Next.
Select Allow the connection in the next window and hit Next.
Select the network type as you see fit and click Next.
Name the rule something meaningful and click Finish.
You have now opened a firewall port in Windows 10!
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Nathaniel Mott is a freelance news and features writer for Tom's Hardware US, covering breaking news, security, and the silliest aspects of the tech industry.
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4 CommentsComment from the forums
canadianvice
A protip, particularly for gamers: Remember that you may also have to repeat a similar process with your router, and additionally, be aware that Windows' "enable through firewall" quick setting (the one that you can just check a box for) is trash. Often incoming ports will be blocked by default and have to be opened, even if it says otherwise.
I hate the interface on the default firewall manager, so taking advantage of the netsh firewall commands I wrote an app that lets you batch create these with rules like "both ways" and then generates a BAT to run for implementation. Also has click and drag, which is ballin'.
Reply
positiveinflux
Thanks for your contribution as well as a reminder for those hosting gaming servers or newcomers
Reply
Fait
Great comment except that you forgot the link to your "App".
Reply
scary_name
Well...there seem to something wrong with my edition of windows 10 (besides it keep changing languages every day). I tried the above mentioned procedure, thrice, but Defender refuses to save any of the exceptions I add to it. Even tried a few alternatives. Every time I exit, and re-open, the new rule is gone. I never should have upgraded from Win7..fml.
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Right click Inbound Rules and select New Rule. Add the port you need to open and click Next. Add the protocol (TCP or UDP) and the port number into the next window and click Next. Select Allow the connection in the next window and hit Next.
Right click Inbound Rules and select New Rule. Add the port you need to open and click Next. Add the protocol (TCP or UDP) and the port number into the next window and click Next. Select Allow the connection in the next window and hit Next.
If you would like to test ports on your computer, use the Windows command prompt and the CMD command netstat -ano. Windows will show you all currently existing network connections via open ports or open, listening ports that are currently not establishing a connection.
Press the Windows key + R, then type "cmd.exe" and click OK. Enter "telnet + IP address or hostname + port number" (e.g., telnet www.example.com 1723 or telnet 10.17.xxx.xxx 5000) to run the telnet command in Command Prompt and test the TCP port status. If the port is open, only a cursor will show.
Click the Start button, then type Windows Firewall in the Search box. Click Windows Firewall, and then click Allow a program or feature through Windows Firewall. Click the Change settings button. If a User Account Control window appears, click Yes, or enter your user name and password, then click OK.
Check the List. If the specific port is listed, the server is listening on that port. If it isn't, the port is not being used, indicating the application is either not running or not using that port.
Perform the following steps to check whether the port is listened on:
Open the Command Prompt window.
Run the following command: netstat -ano | findstr :80. If TCP 0.0. 0.0:80 0.0. 0.0:0 LISTENING 4 is displayed, all traffic from port 80 is listened on. Otherwise, you must modify the listen address.
Does turning off Windows Firewall open all ports? Yes. But your modem/router where your internet comes in might be blocking them anyways. So turning off your windows firewall might not help.
To find open ports on a computer and to check what application is using specified port, use the netstat command line: Open the command prompt (Start > Run > cmd) and use netstat -ano | find /i "<port_number>". It will show you all processes that use the specified port. Notice the PID (process id) in the right column.
On Windows: open the Command Prompt on your Windows machine > type telnet <IP address or domain name> 443 and press Enter. If the command returns “Connected to <IP address or domain name>”, then port 443 is open.
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