Windows 8 firewall and Windows Store

[rand00m]

Hello, I decided to ask here because I searched everywhere and nobody mentions this issue. I 've been playing around with Windows 8 and according to my Windows 7 habits I disabled various Windows services including Windows Firewall, Defender etc because I use third party applications for those purposes. I soon discovered though that disabling the Windows Firewall service prevents you from installing and using any Windows Store Apps, giving out errors like "Something happened and the app failed to install" accompanied by an error code. Re-enabling the Windows Firewall service brings everything back to normal. So it seems Microsoft decided to force its own firewall on Windows users? Does anybody know of a workaround that will allow me to to disable the Windows Firewall Service and still be able to download and install apps from the Windows Store?

[streetw0lf]

Have you tried just turning off the firewall instead of disabling the service?

[TPreston]

AFIK it dosnt use any special ports, Its probably down to the configuration of your other av/firewall

[rand00m]

I have comodo installed. If I enable the Windows Firewall Service the Windows Store works fine, even with comodo installed so I dont think comodo is to blame. I'll uninstall comodo though and see what happens. If it doesnt work I'll enable the firewall service and disable it from control panel and see what happens then.

[Matthew_Thepc]

I have comodo installed. If I enable the Windows Firewall Service the Windows Store works fine, even with comodo installed so I dont think comodo is to blame. I'll uninstall comodo though and see what happens. If it doesnt work I'll enable the firewall service and disable it from control panel and see what happens then.

Try searching for "turn off firewall" and click on "check firewall status". then in the lefthand bar click "turn windows firewall on/off" and turn it off from there, instead of just stopping the service.

[oliver182]

Are your third party apps Windows 8 ready??

[code65536]

Yea, this is a known problem many other users have encountered. I don't know any way around it, except temporarily starting the service when you need to install/update something from the Store. It's fracking idiotic, yes.

[TPreston]

Its got to be the applications themselves rather than ports. I use a network firewall and eset endpoint security with the windows firewall service disabled & an implicit deny firewall rule so it doesn't use any non standard ports.

The only thing i can think of is you have dcom or rpc disabled

[code65536]

I don't have any firewall service running (really, there's no point--virtually zero benefit aside from some placebo feel-good security theater--in having a software firewall or a router firewall running, esp. if you're behind a NAT). So if an alternate firewall works, then the Store is checking for a firewall. Whatever the case, requiring that one exists is, again, absolutely idiotic.

[TPreston]

Also check the event log under applications for DCOM failures