How to Enable the Windows Firewall and Windows Defender

Comments (6)

1. Posted by Ann Powers JANUARY 05, 2009 | 10:52AM

   The videos are only for Vista. Where's the help for XP? I'm disappointed.

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2. Posted by forevergeeks.com JANUARY 24, 2009 | 05:59PM

   there is not need to turn them on, they are on by default. I know people rarely interact with those programs, but rest assure that when something is wrong with them, you will get annoying pop-ups very often from the system telling you to fix it.

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3. Posted by Online Dummies Editor JANUARY 26, 2009 | 10:43AM

   Windows XP doesn't have the Security Center, but otherwise everything works the same. For the Firewall, you can go directly to the "Windows Firewall Settings" dialog box via Start-->Control Panel-->Windows Firewall. XP doesn't come with Windows Defender, but it's a free download here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/defender/default.mspx. After you install it, it works the same in both versions. One of the great things about Windows Defender is that you can get a peek at (and change) all the programs that run when the system starts up. Dummies can't be all things to all people. The videos cost more money than any of the other content types, so we have to make decisions about where to invest our video dollars, and the decision was to move forward with Windows OSes. There's still plenty of non-video XP help at Dummies.com, though!

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4. Posted by LouAnn Donahue MAY 04, 2009 | 08:13PM

   Why does it say in the last sentence," Protection against spyware and other security risks INCREASES upon enabling these free, built-in Windows solutions. I thought the whole reason to use Defender and a Firewall was to DECREASE risks!!!!!!! Please explain-

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5. Posted by 4ndyman MAY 11, 2009 | 03:50PM

   LouAnn: Read the sentence again. Enabling these "solutions" increases PROTECTION, not risks.

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6. Posted by Fretta JULY 06, 2009 | 01:37PM

   I have security One Care (Microsoft) and it will not let me download Windows Defender..do I really need windows defender? Bean

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