Software firewall needed?

Hi all. Ok I will admit I am confused. During the MN-
700 Basestation installation, the software detected that
I had the WinXP firewall running and requested it be shut
down. I shut it down and continued with the
installation, believing that with the MN-700 in place, a
software firewall just wasn't necessary.

Yesterday my IT department was doing some work in the
office, asking us questions about our home systems that
we do use to connect to work. They were giving us
computer safety tips to protect us as well as our work
systems. Top mentions: anti virus and firewalls. When I
mentioned my MN-700 I just installed a week ago and the
turned off WinXP firewall, they freaked.

They highly recommended I turn it back on. I haven't
yet. Figured I'd write here first. Am I wrong? Or are
they misinformed? With the MN-700 in place (desktop
cabled and a laptop wireless), is a WinXP style firewall
necessary?

cheers


Lucas

You CAN run the XP firewall with the MN-700. I have been running the new
Windows Firewall that will be part of XP SP2 with the MN-700 for a long
time. The advice I give is to shut down firewalls only while you are
installing a router and getting it running. Once it is running, re-enable
the firewall.

Lucas wrote:
> Hi all. Ok I will admit I am confused. During the MN-
> 700 Basestation installation, the software detected that
> I had the WinXP firewall running and requested it be shut
> down. I shut it down and continued with the
> installation, believing that with the MN-700 in place, a
> software firewall just wasn't necessary.
>
> Yesterday my IT department was doing some work in the
> office, asking us questions about our home systems that
> we do use to connect to work. They were giving us
> computer safety tips to protect us as well as our work
> systems. Top mentions: anti virus and firewalls. When I
> mentioned my MN-700 I just installed a week ago and the
> turned off WinXP firewall, they freaked.
>
> They highly recommended I turn it back on. I haven't
> yet. Figured I'd write here first. Am I wrong? Or are
> they misinformed? With the MN-700 in place (desktop
> cabled and a laptop wireless), is a WinXP style firewall
> necessary?
>
> cheers


--
Barb Bowman
Expert Zone Columnist
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone
MS-MVP (Windows)

THe XP firewall provides as much protection as the router firewall. I
allows all outgoing packets & only allows some incoming packets. Your
IT department must not have realized that you have a hardware firewall.

Lucas wrote:

> Hi all. Ok I will admit I am confused. During the MN-
> 700 Basestation installation, the software detected that
> I had the WinXP firewall running and requested it be shut
> down. I shut it down and continued with the
> installation, believing that with the MN-700 in place, a
> software firewall just wasn't necessary.
>
> Yesterday my IT department was doing some work in the
> office, asking us questions about our home systems that
> we do use to connect to work. They were giving us
> computer safety tips to protect us as well as our work
> systems. Top mentions: anti virus and firewalls. When I
> mentioned my MN-700 I just installed a week ago and the
> turned off WinXP firewall, they freaked.
>
> They highly recommended I turn it back on. I haven't
> yet. Figured I'd write here first. Am I wrong? Or are
> they misinformed? With the MN-700 in place (desktop
> cabled and a laptop wireless), is a WinXP style firewall
> necessary?
>
> cheers