Block software connecting the internet with a firewall

Microsoft Edge Insider. Azure Databases. Autonomous Systems. Education Sector. Microsoft Localization. Microsoft PnP. Healthcare and Life Sciences. Internet of Things IoT. Enabling Remote Work. Small and Medium Business. Humans of IT. Green Tech. MVP Award Program. You can click Start and type Windows Defender Firewall.

Choose Windows Defender Firewall to open it. Step 2. Click Allow an app or feature through Windows Firewall in the left column. And click Change settings. Step 3. Find the target program you want to block. Step 4. Make sure the target program is not checked in the left.

If a program is not checked, then it means Windows Firewall already blocks the program. For some reason, despite the fact that this is the default way it populated the program path field, it will break the firewall rule. When we browsed to the EXE file for our Maxthon web browser, Windows plugged in the following program path information for the file, which was located in our Documents folder:.

That file path is understood by Windows, but for some reason is no longer recognized when inserted into a firewall rule. Instead, we need to replace the file path that includes the environmental variable with the full file path. In our case it looks like this:. For most applications, the main EXE file is the one you want to block, but there are examples of applications where things are a bit counter-intuitive.

Take Minecraft, for example. At first glance it seems like you should block Minecraft. So, if you want to restrict your child from connecting to online Minecraft servers you need to block Javaw. Here, you have three options:. When in doubt, just check them all to block the application across all networks. The final step is to name your rule. If you want, you can add a fuller description.

If you want to tweak and refine the rule you can double click on the entry and make adjustments—like adding local exceptions e. Our test application was the Maxthon web browser. But, it does serve as a useful example, because we can immediately and clearly demonstrate that the firewall rule is in effect.

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