Port Forwarding

If I open ports on my router (Netgear VPN824) via port forwarding and port triggering for games, remote assistance, vnc, etc, does this leave me open for attack through these ports? Does my software firewall (Windows) protect me from such attacks.

I would like to set up some programs to work through my router, but have been apprehensive due to security concerns.

Any opinion on http://www.portforward.com? Seems to have a lot of good router config info.

PK