Disable Windows firewall in SBS 2003/2008 by group policy

Thanks to MS we are stuck with MS firewall turned on on the domain workstations by group policy. You can force the firewalls to be turned off of just give yourself the ability to manually shut it off.

Find the "windows firewall" group policy on sbs 2003 or on 2008 its the default client policy.


SBS 2008
Navigate to Computer Configuration-Policies-Administrative Templates-Network-Network Connections-Windows Firewall-Domain Profiles.
Find Windows Firewall: Protect all network connections. If set to disable, its turns off FW, is "not configured" will allow you to manually activate or de-activate the FW.

SBS 2003
Computer Config-Admin Templates-Network-Network Connections-Windows Firewall-Domain Profile. Look for Windows Firewall: Protect all network connections. above settings apply.