XP built in firewall

I am aware that XP has a firewall built into it. is there a way you can jack with the settings or look into very many details of it?

and allso, I have heard that sometimes running two firewalls at once can cause problems with each other (or something like that) is this the case with XPs built in fire wall?
i am useing XP home edition, and allso zone alarm.

sorry if these are old questions but just look at my name

 

Tweaking XP ICF and Using 2 Firewalls

Zone Alarm Labs says this:
"Should I use more than one software firewall?

Solution:
Due to the potential for conflicts and problems that can arise from using multiple firewalls, Zone Labs recommends the use of only ZoneAlarm and a virus scanner.

When multiple software firewalls are installed, there is no way of ordering which product will get a packet and which will report it; the determination as to which product gets operating system preference to monitor the traffic will be made at random. When running more than one firewall, ZoneAlarm might not be able to report on incoming port scans or hack attempts. In some cases, running two software firewalls at the same time can cause more problems than running only one.

ZoneAlarm Pro/Plus works well with hardware firewalls - in these cases the hardware firewall would protect incoming ONLY (you would need to set that up for logging if you wish to see those alerts) while ZoneAlarm Pro/Plus continues to protect with Outbound Control.

Also, note that some software firewalls, such as the built-in Windows XP firewall) provide inbound protection only. ZoneAlarm provides both inbound protection and outbound anti-Trojan protection via application control."

You can tweak the XP ICF somewhat:
Network Connections, Click your connection, right-click, Advanced, Settings, Services/Security logging/ICMP. You should probably see a good XP manual for guidance before you change any of the default settings, though.

 

I suggest never using XP firewall...it stops many tasks such as uploading safely...And it doesn't even ask, quite a poor firewall indeed. My suggestion kill it.

Regards,
-BB.

 

I agree with Balba, and most everybody else does too (well, at least on this issue). Get rid of the XP ICF and let your real firewall do its thing. It'll ask for permission for outbounds, and it'll stop the inbounds you want stopped.

Go to the Programs tab in your ZA firewall program to set up permissions.