I agree – I think this issue has spiralled out of control – we all obviously know what we mean and shall we then just draw a line under it 🙂

For the record, I disable all ‘windows firewalls’ on our corp LAN, but the topology is a pretty secure design, and we have multiple hardware firewalls and VLANS.

For the home PC? The “click yes to allow me to pass through” mentality renders the software firewall useless, as Cougar has mentioned.

A NAT’d router, and local AV is sufficient for the home user IMHO.

You could install both but it’s just no worth it and could potentially cause issues.

I still continue to use my additional (to that of windows as its modified by comodo) firewall on my Windows 7 machine – I prefer the alerts and I understand the requests mean (I agree most people do not) and are for and dont just click OK all the time – I like it as it warns me of potential illicit file activity that I have not initiated – but I can only therefore speak for myself? An no we use a different system on our LAN but we have SBS/ISA server with a firewall so no need – horses for courses.

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tried MSE the other day on my nephews laptop – damn thing wouldnt start and just brought up an error.

Uninstalled and put on my usual Avast free instead.