ClearOpt

My work network has some PCs still running Windows XP, and given the ending of support for that OS and the security issues that go along with that, I'm wondering if blocking those PCs access to the internet is worth doing. I have a few queries regarding this - can I use Smart Security's firewall to do this, and if so, how? Can I block internet access while still allowing full access to the local network? Does having access to the network negate the benefits having the XP systems blocked from the internet? The remainder of the PCs on the network are running Windows 7. I'm aware that the best option is to update to a newer OS, but that will mean updating the PCs and while that's the plan at some stage it won't be in the immediate future.

I was trying to find where to set up logging of blocked connections and discovered that I actually had the firewall set to interactive rather than learning mode. I changed it to learning mode and the was able to connect, and a new rule appeared to be generated, so apologies for the mix-up and wasting people's time. My only concern now is could the rule that was generated automatically be "too general" given I received that warning for what was presumably the same rule in interactive mode?

The warning about the rule being too general was from an automatically generated rule - when I tried to access the 'server' OCT PC from one of the other workstation PCs. I have limited time today, but I'll try to work through the procedure you advised and post the firewall log records as soon as I can.

Thanks for the replies. Disabling the firewall does resolve the issue, but when I switch to learning mode and attempt to create a rule, I get the warning that "This rule is too general". Am I safe to ignore this warning and create the rule anyway? What sort of compromise in security might this create? Arakasi, can you advise how installing Nod32 will help with the issue?

I have an optometry practice with a network of 8 or so computers, which has been running (mostly) happily under the protection of various versions of Smart Security for a few years now. About 6 months ago I purchased a new piece of eye-testing equipment (an OCT scanner) which came with it's own PC and software - the instrument does it's thing and the software is used to view the results. As I have multiple consulting rooms the software was installed on a couple of other PCs so that results could be viewed on them as well and everything was working fine until it occurred to me last week that there was no security software on the PC connected to the OCT. I duly purchased another license and installed Smart Security 7 and now I can no longer access the software from the PCs in the other consulting rooms. I've tried creating a rule on all the computers in question to allow the application, but this unfortunately hasn't worked. I've also tried running Smart Security in interactive mode, and this results in a pop-up appearing on the OCT's PC when another PC tries to access it, however if I click on 'allow' and 'remember this rule' I get a warning stating that the rule is too general. This is creating significant workflow issues, and unfortunately the OCT's software developer hasn't been able to suggest a solution. Does allowing a rule that is too general create significant risks? Any help much appreciated.