How to Open Port Using Windows Firewall in Windows 10 [Tutorial]
A firewall is an essential aspect of computing and no PC should ever be without one. That’s why Windows has one bundled and active as standard. Windows Firewall occasionally has to be told to let a program communicate with the network, which is where opening ports comes in. If you want to open firewall ports in Windows 10, here’s how you do it.
Firewalls are there to protect you from threats on the internet (both traffic from the internet and from local applications trying to gain access when they shouldn’t). Sometimes, though, you’ll want to allow otherwise restricted traffic through your firewall. To do so, you’ll have to open a port.
When a device connects to another device on a network (including the internet), it specifies a port number that lets the receiving device know how to handle the traffic. Where an IP address shows traffic how to get to a particular device on a network, the port number lets the receiving device know which program gets that traffic. By default, most unsolicited traffic from the internet is blocked by Windows Firewall. If you’re running something like a game server, you might need to open a port to allow that specific kind of traffic through the firewall.
Note: This tutorial shows you how to open a port on a particular PC’s firewall to let traffic in. If you have a router on your network (which you likely do), you will also need to allow the same traffic through that router by forwarding the port there.
Firewalls are designed to protect a network from threats. Either threats from the outside trying to get in or threats from the inside trying to get out. It does this by blocking network-enabled ports. Every time a program tries to communicate through this port, the firewall checks its database of rules to see if it is allowed or not. If it doesn’t know, it asks you, which is why you sometimes see prompts asking you if a particular program is permitted to access the internet.
This tutorial will apply for computers, laptops, desktops,and tablets running the Windows 10, Windows 8/8.1, Windows 7 operating systems.Works for all major computer manufactures (Dell, HP, Acer, Asus, Toshiba, Lenovo, Samsung).
