Windows Firewall and Remote Management

Firewalls are important. From the moment that your computer connects to a public network, automated scanners probe its network interfaces looking for weaknesses to exploit. Today's computer user is much more likely to access a publically accessible Wi-Fi network, either in a coffee shop or in an airport lounge. When you connect to the free Wi-Fi network at the coffee shop, you do not know if someone sitting a couple of tables away is running a port scanner looking for vulnerabilities in your computer's security. You need a firewall all the time, not just when connected to a public network. You need it active when you are connected to your corporate network because you cannot be sure if a member of the sales team, who takes her laptop with her wherever she goes, might have had her machine compromised when she was not being careful. If a compromised computer connects to a network where other clients do not have firewalls enabled, it will not be long until that infected computer compromises all the unprotected computers on the network.

As IT departments are asked to do more with less, support staffs have less time to perform on-site visits to resolve customer technical issues. It is increasingly necessary to be able to resolve as many client maintenance issues as you can remotely from the helpdesk rather than having to visit each computer that is the subject of a support ticket. Windows 7 makes this easier. Not only do clients running Windows 7 support Remote Desktop and Windows Remote Assistance, it is now possible to run Windows PowerShell scripts and command-line utilities against properly configured clients, giving support staff even more options when it comes to resolving maintenance issues.