[prashant]

File and Printer Sharing in Vista

Microsoft has allowed users to share locally attached resources such as disk drives and printers with other users on the network from their own PCs. Windows Vista provides the same feature, which you can enable in the Network and Sharing Center. Even though both file and printer sharing are listed separately, enabling one or the other enables the following inbound port exceptions in the Windows Firewall:

1) File and Printer Sharing (Echo Request–ICMPv4-In): This exception allows PING messages to be sent to the local computer from any computer attached to the network using ICMPv4, including those attached to the Internet or other remote networks.

2) File and Printer Sharing (Echo Request–ICMPv6-In): This allows IPv6-enabled computers to send PING messages to the local computer using ICMPv6. This exception is enabled for all network-attached computers, regardless of location.

3) File and Printer Sharing (NB-Datagram-In): This creates an inbound rule to allow NetBIOS Datagram transmission and welcome over UDP port 138 from machines on the local subnet.

4) File and Printer Sharing (NB-Name-In): This creates an inbound rule to allow NetBIOS Name Resolution over UDP port 137 from machines on the local subnet.

5) File and Printer Sharing (NB-Session-In): This creates an inbound rule to allow NetBIOS Session Service connection from the local subnet on TCP port 139.

6) File and Printer Sharing (SMB-In): This creates an inbound rule to allow Server Message Block (SMB) transmission and welcome through Named Pipes over TCP port 445 from machines on the local subnet.

7) File and Printer Sharing (Spooler Service–RPC): This creates an inbound rule to allow the Print Spooler Service to accept dynamic Remote Procedure Call (RPC) connections over TCP from machines on the local subnet.

8) File and Printer Sharing (Spooler Service–RPC-EPMAP): This creates an inbound rule to allow RPC-EPMAP connections over TCP from the local subnet.

The following outbound exceptions are enabled when file and printer sharing is turned on:

1) Outbound PING traffic, both ICMPv4 and ICMPv6: Outbound Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) connections are enabled to all network-connected devices.

2) Outbound NetBIOS and SMB traffic: Creates outbound rules for UDP ports 137 and 138, and TCP ports 139 and 445, to machines on the local subnet.