Firewall & Network Protection on Windows 10/11

Firewall and Network Protection Windows 10/11

The Firewall & Network Protection feature in Windows Security lets you view the status of Microsoft Defender Firewall and other third-party firewalls, see what networks your computer is connected to, etc.

1. To access Firewall & Network Protection:

• Press Windows + S to open Windows Search.
• Type Windows Security in the search box and select Windows Security App to open it.
• Select Firewall & network protection in the left panel to access this feature.

2. Turn Microsoft Defender Firewall On or Off

It’s advised to have Microsoft Defender Firewall on to protect you from unauthorized access on your Windows computer. Learn how to turn on or turn off Microsoft Defender Firewall on your Windows 10/11 computer below.

On Windows 10:

• Click Start > Settings > Update & Security > Windows Security.
• Click Firewall & network protection to access this setting.
• Select a network profile: Domain network, Private network, or Public network.
• Then under Microsoft Defender Firewall, you can toggle the switch to on or off status to turn on or off the firewall of the domain network.

On Windows 11:

• Click Start > Settings > Privacy & Security > Windows Security > Firewall & network protection.
• Select a network profile.
• Under Microsoft Defender Firewall, you can turn on or turn off the switch to turn on or off the firewall for your network.

3. How to use Firewall & Network Protection

Aside from managing the firewall of your computer networks, you can also use the Firewall & Network Protection function in Windows Security to do the following.

Allow an app through firewall: You can click this option on the Firewall & Network Protection page to allow apps to communicate through Windows Defender Firewall. You can add, change, and remove allowed apps and ports. If Windows Firewall blocks an app you need, you can add an exception for that app. Click Change settings to save the changes.

Network and Internet Troubleshooter: If you are having problems with your network connection, you can use this troubleshooter to try to automatically diagnose and fix the problems. (Check more tips to troubleshoot internet connection problems.)

Firewall notification settings: You can click this option to manage your security providers that protect your computer and choose the notifications you receive from Windows Security.

Windows Security will send notifications with critical information about the health and security of your device. You can click Manage notifications to specify which informational notifications you want.

You can freely turn on or turn off the Account Protection Notifications which can notify you if there are issues with your Windows Hello or Dynamic Lock.

Under Firewall & Network Protection Notifications, you can turn on or off the “Notify me when Microsoft Defender Firewall blocks a new app” option. You can also select a specific network to configure the notifications.

Advanced settings: If you know much about firewall settings, you can click this option and click Yes in the pop-up UAC window to open the Windows Defender Firewall with Advanced Security window. You can view and create inbound or outbound firewall rules, and connection security rules, view current firewall and IPsec policy and activity, see monitoring logs for the firewall, and more. If you don’t know much about the firewall settings, you should not change the rules since it may make your computer more vulnerable and cause some applications not to work properly.

Restore firewalls to default: If some changes to your Windows Firewall settings make your computer not work properly, you can reset your firewall settings to default. It will reset the settings to the original status when you first got the computer.

4. How to hide the Firewall & Network Protection section

In Windows 10 version 1709 or later, you can choose to hide the entire Firewall & Network Protection section by Group Policy. After that, this feature won’t appear on the home page of the Windows Security app or the sidebar of the app.

• Press Windows + R, type gpedit.msc in the Windows Run dialog, and press Enter to open Group Policy Editor on Windows 10/11.
• Click Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Security > Firewall and network protection.
• Double-click the Hide the Firewall and network protection area option in the right window. Choose the Enabled option and click OK to save the changes.

Free Data Recovery Software for Windows

Here we introduce a free data recovery program to help you recover deleted or lost data from your Windows computer or other storage devices.

MiniTool Power Data Recovery is a top free data recovery program for Windows. You can use it to recover any deleted or lost files, photos, videos, etc. from a Windows computer, USB flash drive, SD or memory card, external hard drive, or SSD.

You can use MiniTool Power Data Recovery to recover data from various data loss situations. For instance, you can use it to recover data from a corrupted hard drive or a mistakenly formatted drive. You can also use it to recover lost data after a malware/virus infection, BSOD, or any other computer issues. It can even help you recover data when the PC won’t boot thanks to its built-in Bootable Media Builder.

It features a simple interface and operation and even novice users can operate it with ease.

Download and install MiniTool Power Data Recovery on your Windows computer and check the steps below for how to recover data with this tool.

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• Launch MiniTool Power Data Recovery. If you’d like to recover data from an external device like USB, HDD, SD, etc. you should connect the device to your Windows computer first.
• On the main UI, you can select the target drive under Logical Drives and click Scan. You can also select a specific location like Desktop, Recycle Bin, or a particular folder to scan. If you don’t know the exact location, you can click the Devices tab and select the entire device to scan.
• After the software finishes the scan process, you can check the scan result to find the wanted files, check them and click Save to choose a new destination to store the recovered files.

Tip: To only choose a specific type of file to scan, you can click the Scan Settings icon in the left sidebar of the main UI. Then you can choose what you want to scan and recover.

Free Disk Partition Manager for Windows

Sometimes you may need an easy-to-use disk partition manager to do some actions to a hard disk like repartitioning the disk. You can use MiniTool Partition Wizard.

MiniTool Partition Wizard is a top free disk partition manager for Windows. You can use this program to manage hard disks from all aspects.

You can use it to create a new partition, delete a partition, extend or resize a partition like extending C drive, merge two partitions into one, split a partition into two, format or wipe a partition, assign or change a drive letter, convert partition between FAT and NTFS, etc.

You can also use it to check and fix disk file system errors and explore bad sectors on the disk, analyze hard drive space, test hard drive speed, migrate OS to SSD/HDD, clone disk, and more.

Download and install MiniTool Partition Wizard on your Windows computer and use it to manage disks now.

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Free PC Backup Software for Windows

For important files on your computer, having a backup is always the perfect way to avoid permanent data loss.

If you have a large amount of data to back up on your PC, you can utilize a professional PC backup program.

MiniTool ShadowMaker is a top free PC backup software program that helps you back up everything on your PC.

It lets you freely select files, folders, partitions, or the whole disk content to back up to an external hard drive, USB flash drive, or network drive.

You can also use it to back up and restore the Windows operating system. You can use it to create a system image backup for your Windows computer and restore the OS from the backup when needed.

You can also set a schedule to automatically back up the selected data. Incremental backup is also supported to only keep the latest version of the backup to save space for your device.

Aside from backup, you can also use File Sync to sync files to the target location to create a backup.

Get MiniTool ShadowMaker for your Windows computer and use it for PC backup now.

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Conclusion

This post mainly introduces the Firewall & Network Protection feature in Windows Security on Windows 10/11. You can easily access this feature and manage your firewall settings on your Windows computer. Some useful computer software programs from MiniTool Software are also introduced to help you recover deleted/lost data, manage hard disks, and back up data and system on your Windows PC.

To find solutions to other computer problems, you may visit MiniTool News Center which contains various computer tutorials.

MiniTool Software is a top software developing company that also offers you MiniTool MovieMaker, MiniTool Video Converter, MiniTool Video Repair, etc.

MiniTool MovieMaker is a free video editor program for Windows. You can use it to trim video to cut unwanted parts, add effects/transitions/subtitles/music, etc. to video, and export the video in HD MP4 or another preferred format.

MiniTool Video Converter is a free video converter for Windows. You can use it to convert any video or audio file to your preferred format, download YouTube videos for offline playback, or record your computer screen with audio.

MiniTool Video Repair helps you repair corrupted MP4/MOV videos for free.

If you have any issues with using MiniTool Software products, you may contact [email protected].

Also read: Learn how to recover hard drive data by reading this comprehensive guide.