Disable Windows Firewall from Commandline

How to disable the XP firewall from the commandline

There are many Network Administration tasks that can't be accomplished when the XP Firewall is enabled. Since the release of XP SP2 the Firewall is enabled by default. Here is a way to disable the firewall from the commandline which can be very usefull.

Prerequisites

You must have access to the PC you want to disable the Firewall on.
Possible options: Local access, a remote shell like telnet, or you must have admin access to the computer and be on another computer within the same subnet.

Checking the Firewall Status

The 'SC' command allows us to check the firewall status. From Local Shell

sc firewall show opmode

From Remote Shell

sc \\RemoteHostname firewall show opmode

Disabling the Firewall

From Local Shell

sc firewall set opmode DISABLE

From Remote Shell

sc \\RemoteHostname firewall set opmode DISABLE

Enabling the Firewall

From Local Shell

sc firewall set opmode ENABLE

From Remote Shell

sc \\RemoteHostname firewall set opmode ENABLE

Notes

1) You can also disable the XP Firewall via Group Policy is your computers are on a Windows 2000+ domain.