How to Check if Firewall Is Blocking a Port or a Program? [MiniTool News]

By Stella | Follow | Last Updated November 23, 2020

Summary :

Windows Firewall is a very useful tool that comes with your Windows system. It can help you find and block some suspected ports and programs that can be harmful to your computer. For some reason, you may want to know if your Firewall is blocking something. In this MiniTool post, we will show you how to check if Firewall is blocking a port.

Windows Firewall is a Windows built-in tool that can be used to filter network data transmission to and from on your Windows computer. It can also be used to block suspicious and harmful programs. At times, the Firewall may block some ports or programs accidentally.

When you encounter some issues like high ping in games, you can go to check whether the game is blocked by Firewall or whether Firewall is blocking a port.

But how to check if Firewall is blocking a port or a program? In this post, we will show you some guides on how to check if your Firewall is blocking something.

How to Check if a Port Is Blocked by Firewall?

You can check your Firewall blocks which ports by using Run or Command Prompt. Here are two guides:

Check Blocked Ports in Firewall via Run

1. Press Win+R to open Run.

2. Type control and press Enter to open Control Panel.

3. Click Administrative Tools.

4. Double click Windows Defender Firewall with Advanced Security to open it.

5. Go to Action > Properties.

6. Click the Windows Defender Firewall Properties link.

7. Switch to your preferred profile (here is Domain Profile in this example) and then click Customize in the Logging section.

8. Open the dropdown menu for Log dropped packets and select Yes.

9. Remember the path in the Name section. Or you can directly copy the path.

10. Click OK to save the change.

11. Open File Explorer and then go to that path. The path looks like %systemroot%system32LogFilesFirewall.

12. Open the log file which is named as log. Then, you can check for the blocked ports in the log file.

Check Blocked Ports in Firewall via Command Prompt

1. Use Windows Search to search for cmd.
2. Right-click the first result and then select Run as administrator.
3. Type netsh firewall show state and press Enter.
4. Then, you can see all the blocked and active ports in your Firewall.

Then, how to see if your Firewall is blocking a program? We will introduce one method in the next part.

Do you need to permanently disable Windows Defender Antivirus on Windows 10? In this post, we will show there ways to do this job.

How to Check if Windows Firewall Is Blocking a Program?

You can check which program is blocked by your Windows Firewall in the tool itself. It is very simple to do this job:

1. Use Windows Search to search for Windows Firewall and then select Windows Defender Firewall from the search result.

2. Click Allow an app or feature through Windows Defender Firewall from the left list.

3. In Allow applications, you can see the allowed programs are checked and the unchecked ones are blocked by Windows Firewall. If you want to unblock an application, you can click the Change settings button in the top-right side and then check your wanted application. After that, you can click the OK button on the bottom to save the change.

Those are the methods on how to check if Firewall is blocking a port or a program. You can just use one way to help you out.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Position: Columnist

Stella has been working in MiniTool Software as an English Editor for more than 4 years. Her articles mainly cover the fields of data recovery including storage media data recovery and phone data recovery, YouTube videos download, partition management, and video conversions.

How to Check for Ports in Use in Windows 10

At any one time, there’s a whole bunch of information being sent between your Windows 10 PC and the endless void of the Internet. This is done using a process whereby network-dependent processes seek out TCP and UDP ports, which they use to communicate with the Internet. First, your data gets sent to remote ports at the destination or website your processes are trying to connect to, then it gets received at local ports back on your PC.

Most of the time, Windows 10 knows how to manage ports and ensure that traffic is being directed through the right ports so that those processes can connect with what they need to. But sometimes two processes may be assigned to one port, or maybe you just want to get a better picture of your network traffic and what’s going in and out.

That’s why wrote this guide that shows you how to get an overview of your ports and see which applications are using which ports.

Use Nirsoft CurrPorts

NirSoft is one of the best indie software developers, giving us great utilities, like PassView and WirelessKeyView. While some people will prefer checking their ports without installing third-party software (in which case, scroll down to the CMD method), CurrPorts is easily the fastest and most convenient way to view your ports.

Once you’ve installed CurrPorts, just open it to see a list of all your ports currently in use. If you’re looking for local ports in use, just click the “Local Port” column at the top to order the list by port number (handy if you’re looking for a specific one). You can do the same thing with remote ports, too.

If you want to really find specific ports, click the “Advanced Filters” icon at the top and enter your string in the format they suggest. It should look something like the below image.

Hit OK when you’re ready, and the list will filter down to your queries.

Command Prompt Method

The integrated – though not necessarily the simplest – way to check open ports is to use the trusty command prompt.

Click the Start button, type cmd , then right-click “Command Prompt” when it shows up in the search results. Click “Run as administrator.”

Once you’re in the elevated command prompt, enter the following command:

This will steadily bring up a list of ports that is probably quite long, along with the Windows processes that are using them. (You can press Ctrl + A , then Ctrl + C to copy all information to the clipboard.) On the average PC, there will be two main local IP addresses that contain ports on your PC.

The first, in our case, is “127.0.0.1.” This IP address is otherwise known as “localhost” or a “loopback address,” and any process listening to ports here is communicating internally on your local network without using any network interface. The actual port is the number you see after the colon. (See image below.)

The bulk of your processes will probably be listening to ports prefixed with “192.168.xxx.xxx,” which is your IP address. This means the processes you see listed here are listening for communications from remote Internet locations (such as websites). Again, the port number is the number after the colon.

TCPView

If you don’t mind installing a third-party app and want to have more control over what’s going on with all your ports, you can use a lightweight app called TCPView. This immediately brings up a list of processes and their associated ports.

What make this better than the command prompt is that you can actively see the ports opening, closing and sending packets. Just look for the green, red and yellow highlights. You can also reorder the list by clicking the column headings, making it easier to find the process you want or two separate processes vying for the same port.

If you do find a process or connection you want to close, just right-click that process. You can then select “End process,” which is exactly the same function as the one in Windows task manager. Or you can click “Close Connection” to leave the process open but stop it from listening on a given port.

If you’re having some trouble in Windows 10, then see whether a Windows update may be causing it. We also have a handy guide for managing the health of your hard drive in Windows 10.

Related:

Content Manager at Make Tech Easier. Enjoys Android, Windows, and tinkering with retro console emulation to breaking point.

How to see if Windows Firewall is blocking a port or program

• Wondering how you can check if a website is blocked by your Firewall? Check the firewall settings.
• The Windows Firewall settings will give you show you any port is blocked on your PC.
• Easily fix any problem caused by your Firewall blocking the Internet with the solutions below.
• The Windows Firewall also allows you to select which programs can run on your computer.

1. Download Restoro PC Repair Tool that comes with Patented Technologies (patent available here).
2. Click Start Scan to find Windows issues that could be causing PC problems.
3. Click Repair All to fix issues affecting your computer’s security and performance

• Restoro has been downloaded by 0 readers this month.

The Windows Firewall is a built-in security application that comes with Windows OS since the beginning. The software is built to filter network data transmission to and from your Windows system.

The Firewall will block any suspicious and harmful connection depending on the threat level.

The users can configure the Windows Firewall settings as per their need to block or open port in Windows 10 and other versions. However, at times the Firewall may block ports or programs accidentally by user’s or administrator’s misconfiguration.

Now, if you want to know if the Windows Firewall is blocking a port or program on your system, you need to check your settings. Here’s how to check firewall settings.

How do I check if Windows Firewall is blocking a port ?

1. Check your firewall settings

1. Press Windows Key + R to open Run.
2. Type control and press OK to open Control Panel.
3. Click on System and Security.
4. Scroll down and open Administrative Tools.
   
5. In the Administrative Tools window, open Windows Defender Firewall with Advanced Security.
6. Click on Actions and select Properties.
   
   
7. Now select your preferred Profile (Domain, Private, Publick).
8. In the Logging section, click on the Customize button.
   
9. Click on the drop-down menu for Log dropped packets: and select Yes.
10. Take note of the pfirewall.log path in the Name section.
11. Click OK to save the changes.
    
12. Open File Explorer and go to the path where the log file is saved.
    • It should look something like this: %systemroot%system32LogFilesFirewall
13. Click on the pfirewall.log file and check for any blocked ports.

2. Check for Blocked Port using the Command Prompt

1. Type cmd in the search bar.
2. Right-click on the Command Prompt and select Run as Administrator.
   
3. In the command prompt, type the following command and hit enter.
   • netsh firewall show state
4. This will display all the blocked and active port configured in the firewall.

How to check if Windows Firewall is blocking a program ?

1. Press Windows Key + R to open Run.
2. Type control and press OK to open Control Panel.
3. Click on System and Security.
4. Click on Windows Defender Firewall.
5. From the left pane Allow an app or feature through Windows Defender Firewall.
   
6. In the allowed app window, scroll through all the apps.
7. Locate the app you want to check and see if the app is checked.
   • If it is unchecked, the app is blocked on the Firewall.
8. If your program is blocked, simply uncheck the app and click OK.

In the Customize Settings window, click the circle(s) next to Turn off Windows Defender Firewall for public networks, private networks, or both.

That’s about it for this article. Make sure you follow the solutions thoroughly and see what works for you. Also, feel free to send us any feedback regarding the subject in the comment section below.