Security

The Windows Defender Firewall is a critical component of Windows security, controlling inbound and outbound network traffic to protect your system from unauthorized access and malicious activity. While often misunderstood, managing it effectively is essential for both security and application functionality. This post clarifies the distinction between “Windows Firewall” and “Windows Defender Firewall,” and provides command-line and PowerShell methods to manage its state (on/off) and configure rules. 1. “Windows Firewall” vs “Windows Defender Firewall” The naming of Windows’ built-in firewall can be a source of confusion, but the reality is simpler than it seems. ...

Encountering “System Error 5 has occurred. Access is denied.” when trying to access a Windows network share can be frustrating. This error typically indicates that while the client can reach the server, the server is rejecting the connection for security reasons. This often happens when trying to connect as a non-domain user or when guest access is not properly configured. This guide will walk you through the common causes of “Access Denied” (Error 5) and provide clear, step-by-step solutions to fix it. ...

When attempting to create a new item on a Windows network share, you might encounter a security-related error that prevents the connection: “New-Item: You can’t access this shared folder because your computer is configured to require SMB signing. These policies help protect your PC from unsafe or malicious devices on the network.” This error indicates a security policy mismatch between your client machine and the server hosting the share. It’s not a permissions issue, but rather a conflict in how the two machines handle the integrity of SMB (Server Message Block) traffic. ...

Automating tasks that require administrator privileges on Windows presents a common challenge: how do you handle the UAC (User Account Control) prompt in a non-interactive script, such as in a CI/CD pipeline or a scheduled task? Attempting to bypass UAC is a major security risk and is not recommended. Instead, you should use tools and methods that are designed for non-interactive elevation. This guide will cover the two best approaches: using the open-source gsudo tool for scripted elevation and the built-in Windows Task Scheduler. ...

When you need to run a command as an administrator on a remote Windows machine, you have two primary technologies to choose from: the traditional WinRM (Windows Remote Management) and the modern, cross-platform OpenSSH. Both can get the job done, but they handle elevation and authentication in fundamentally different ways. This guide will provide a deep dive into both methods, comparing their strengths, weaknesses, and best use cases to help you choose the right tool for your remote administration needs. ...

If you’ve ever tried to activate Microsoft Office in a corporate or restricted network environment, you may have encountered frustrating activation failures. Even with a valid license, Office activation can fail if it cannot communicate with Microsoft’s activation servers. This is almost always due to a firewall blocking the necessary outbound traffic. This guide provides a comprehensive overview of the required domains and ports for Office activation and offers ready-to-use scripts to configure various firewalls, including Windows Firewall, Cisco ASA, Palo Alto, pfSense, and Linux iptables. ...

In a secure or air-gapped environment, installing Windows features that normally require an internet connection can be a challenge. A common example is the OpenSSH Server, which is essential for secure remote management. When you run Add-WindowsCapability, Windows typically downloads the package from Microsoft Update. This guide provides two reliable methods for installing the OpenSSH Server on an offline Windows machine (Server 2019/2022 or Windows 10/11), ensuring you can maintain security and manageability even without internet access. ...

When diagnosing network connectivity issues, one of the most fundamental steps is to determine if a specific TCP port is open and listening on a remote host. A closed, blocked, or unresponsive port is often the root cause of application failures, and knowing how to test it is a critical skill for any IT professional. This guide provides a comprehensive overview of the most common and reliable methods to test port connectivity on Windows, from modern PowerShell cmdlets to classic command-line tools. ...

If you’ve ever downloaded a script, installer, or even a help file from the internet, you’ve likely encountered a frustrating Windows security feature: the file is “blocked,” preventing it from running or displaying correctly. This is due to the “Mark of the Web,” a security mechanism designed to protect you from potentially malicious content. PowerShell provides a simple and elegant solution to this problem: the Unblock-File cmdlet. This guide will explain what the Mark of the Web is, how to identify blocked files, and how to use Unblock-File to safely manage them. ...

The dsregcmd command-line tool is an indispensable utility for any administrator managing Windows devices in a modern, hybrid environment. It provides a wealth of information about a device’s identity and its join state with both on-premises Active Directory (AD) and cloud-based Azure AD (Entra ID). However, the output can sometimes be confusing. A common scenario is running dsregcmd /status and seeing that AzureAdJoined, EnterpriseJoined, and DomainJoined are all set to NO. While this might look like an error, it simply means the computer is in a standalone workgroup state. ...