Windows activation in Windows Server 2008 or in Windows Vista fails when you configure a non-Microsoft firewall to use HTTPS authentication to enable access to the Internet.

Consider the following scenario. In an Active Directory domain environment, you configure the Windows Firewall with Advanced Security Group Policy setting. Specifically, you specify three firewall log files for these three profiles, respectively. Then, you apply this Group Policy setting to a Windows Vista-based client computer. However, when the network profile is changed in this scenario, you notice that the firewall information for the private profile is unexpectedly logged in the log file for the public profile.

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Consider the following scenario:

• You have a computer that is running Windows Vista Starter, Windows Vista Home Basic, or Windows Vista Home Premium.
• You run any of the following commands to open ports in the firewall:
  • netsh firewall add portopening
  • netsh firewall set portopening
  • netsh firewall set service

However, these commands fail silently. Additionally, you may not receive an error message or a warning that indicates that the port has not been opened.

Note The netsh firewall context is supported only on computers that are running Windows Vista Ultimate, Windows Vista Business, and Windows Vista Enterprise.

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On a Windows Vista-based client computer, Windows Firewall applies local program exceptions and port exceptions in the private profile and in the public profile. This behavior occurs even when the Windows Firewall standard profile settings indicate that these exceptions are not allowed.

This behavior may cause the following problems.

Problem 1
On the client computer, you may unexpectedly receive a Windows Firewall notification.

Problem 2
A local administrator can unblock a program even though the Windows Firewall: Allow local program exceptions Group Policy setting is disabled.

Problem 3
A local administrator can add program exceptions and port exceptions through the Windows Firewall Control Panel program even though the following Group Policy settings are disabled:

• Windows Firewall: Allow local program exceptions
• Windows Firewall: Allow local port exceptions

On a Windows Vista-based computer, the netsh firewall command together with the profile=all parameter does not configure the public profile. For example, the following command opens local port 80 to TCP traffic for the domain profile and for the private profile. But the following command does not open the public profile:

netsh firewall add portopening protocol=TCP port=80 name=”Web Port” profile=all

The Windows Firewall Control Panel program only displays settings for the currently active profile. Therefore, if you run this command, and you then open the Windows Firewall Control Panel program when the public profile is active, you receive the following exception:

“Web Port” was not created for the public profile.

Note: This is expected behavior.

If you open the Windows Firewall Control Panel program when the domain profile or the private profile is active, you will receive the following exception:

“Web Port” was created.

When you try to use Windows Meeting Space (WMS) on a Windows Vista-based computer, you receive the following error message:

Group Policy might be preventing you from changing firewall settings. For assistance, contact your network administrator or technical support.