Remote WMI relies on Windows Firewall settings incorrectly even if a third-party firewall is enabled

View products that this article applies to.

See the products that this article applies to.

Symptoms

Assume that a third-party firewall is installed and registered by using Windows Firewall to take ownership of Firewall policy management. Remote Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) connections are blocked even though the third-party firewall that owns the policy is configured to allow the connections.

This issue occurs in the following operating systems:

Windows 10
Windows 8.1
Windows Server 2012 R2
Windows Embedded 8
Windows Server 2012
Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1)
Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1

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Cause

This issue occurs because the DCOM API doesn't honor the third-party firewall when it queries the firewall settings.

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Workaround

To work around this issue, run the following command at a command prompt to enable WMI traffic:

netsh advfirewall firewall set rule group="windows management instrumentation (wmi)" new enable=yes

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Status

Microsoft has confirmed that this is an issue in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.

Third-party information disclaimer

The third-party products that this article discusses are manufactured by companies that are independent of Microsoft. Microsoft makes no warranty, implied or otherwise, about the performance or reliability of these products.

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