Just moved my daughter into college Saturday and am concerned about the security 
of her laptop. They gave us a sheet that had us disable Windows Firewall(which I 
did reluctantly)and also wanted us to disable any AntiVirus programs. She had avast 
so I uninstalled that. They wanted this done before hooking it up to the network. 
All went well after that, logged onto the network, ran Windows Update and got to 
the point of installing their AntiVirus program which was Sophos. At that point I 
kept getting a Appache error so it couldn't install the AntiVirus.
Thats my first concern. (she is going to call IT for this)My second concern is Network 
Sharing. I had her laptop on our network here at home and had File Sharing on. What 
should I have the Settings on?? I called her and had her try to turn off File  Sharing 
but she couldn't change them because the Windows Firewall was off. I never could 
access anything other than her Public Folder on our home network. Any input would 
be very much appreciated. Thank You!!

Here is how they are Set.

Network is on Public(is file sharing disabled by default???) 

Network Discovery=ON
File Sharing=ON
Public Folder Sharing=ON
Printer Sharing=OFF
Password Protected Sharing=OFF
Media Sharing=OFF

Tip: Run a free scan for common Windows errors ad

re: Network Sharing/College/Security Sunday, August 24, 2008 at 9:09 am Posted by quick69gto (840 messages posted) Leave the Network Discovery on but turn the rest off. Why the college IT department would want the anti-virus removed is beyond me. Have your daughter (better yet, you) talk to them about which anti-virus they prefer to be installed. If they prefer none be installed then insist on one no matter what lame excuse they give. It's not smart to use a PC without an anti-virus program no matter which network the PC is on. Disabling the firewall I can see. The college, more than likely, has a hardware firewall protecting the network. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Network Sharing/College/Security Sunday, August 24, 2008 at 5:52 pm Posted by Roger (4 messages posted) Odd that you're seeing an apache error...apache is a web server, that should only be running if you've got a web site on the laptop. I guess that the apache error was from the server that was providing the Sophos antivirus for installation? This all sounds odd, what if some other student brought a laptop to school that had a virus (not unlikely)? That virus is behind the college's firewall, and your daughter's system has neither a firewall or antivirus running. I have 2 daughters in college, both have laptops, and you can be sure that they have both firewalls and antivirus on at all times, both at home and school. My inclination would be to re-install the antivirus that you were using and turn on the firewall until the apache error is taken care of. There's too much chance of getting a virus without them. You should be able to configure the firewall to open the port that the antivirus software installation via apache needs just when they try to install (if I understand you correctly), and you would still have the rest of the port space blocked by the firewall. Turning off the firewall really isn't desirable or necessary. And I would have antivirus software running as much of the time as possible as well. -Roger [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Network Sharing/College/Security Monday, August 25, 2008 at 3:59 am Posted by Norm (1374 messages posted) I'm kicking myself for uninstalling the AntiVirus instead of just disabling it. If I had just disabled it then I could of enabled it before I left. Unfortunately it's 2 hours away and won't be there until Saturday for a soccer game. There wasn't enough time for me to work on it because they wanted the parents out of there at a certain time. I know IT there will be backlogged and it will be a while before they can get to it I'm sure. Crap!! Thanks for the input!! On Sunday, August 24, 2008 at 9:09 am, quick69gto wrote: >Leave the Network Discovery on but turn the rest off. >Why the college IT department would want the anti-virus removed is beyond me. Have >your daughter (better yet, you) talk to them about which anti-virus they prefer to >be installed. If they prefer none be installed then insist on one no matter what >lame excuse they give. >It's not smart to use a PC without an anti-virus program no matter which network >the PC is on. >Disabling the firewall I can see. The college, more than likely, has a hardware firewall >protecting the network. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Network Sharing/College/Security Monday, August 25, 2008 at 4:08 am Posted by Norm (1374 messages posted) I'm kicking myself for uninstalling the AntiVirus instead of just disabling it. If I had just disabled it then I could of enabled it before I left. Unfortunately it's 2 hours away and won't be there until Saturday for a soccer game. There wasn't enough time for me to work on it because they wanted the parents out of there at a certain time. I know IT there will be backlogged and it will be a while before they can get to it I'm sure. Crap!! Thanks for the input!! On Sunday, August 24, 2008 at 5:52 pm, Roger wrote: >Odd that you're seeing an apache error...apache is a web server, that should only >be running if you've got a web site on the laptop. I guess that the apache error >was from the server that was providing the Sophos antivirus for installation? This >all sounds odd, what if some other student brought a laptop to school that had a >virus (not unlikely)? That virus is behind the college's firewall, and your daughter's >system has neither a firewall or antivirus running. I have 2 daughters in college, >both have laptops, and you can be sure that they have both firewalls and antivirus >on at all times, both at home and school. > > My inclination would be to re-install the antivirus that you were using and turn >on the firewall until the apache error is taken care of. There's too much chance >of getting a virus without them. You should be able to configure the firewall to >open the port that the antivirus software installation via apache needs just when >they try to install (if I understand you correctly), and you would still have the >rest of the port space blocked by the firewall. Turning off the firewall really >isn't desirable or necessary. And I would have antivirus software running as much >of the time as possible as well. > >-Roger [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Network Sharing/College/Security Monday, August 25, 2008 at 5:57 am Posted by Charlie Hadden (854 messages posted) Have her try to D/L either AVG or Avast free. See if they will install. These are full service AVs and work well in most configurations. Colleges are the worst when it comes to network policy. I had to contact some people at Rutgers and they wanted me to use their version of instant messaging for the discussion. But when signing up for the IM they not only asked for my SSN but asked for it on a no-SSl (not secured) page. These people are little more than students themselves. Your daughter is better off using a satellite or cell connection like that new Verizon being advertised. At least for the short term. It may not be as fast but if she looses her personal identification info or some research papers due to hack or something it would cost you more to fix that mess. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Network Sharing/College/Security Tuesday, August 26, 2008 at 4:07 am Posted by Norm (1374 messages posted) Talked to my daughter last night. She has a appointment with IT today. Hopefully they will get their AntiVirus(Sophos) installed. That is the best I can hope for at this point. I have always been the one to work on her system and to try to walk her through stuff on the phone is very difficult. Here is what she replied when I sent her a link to this post. Pretty funny. Thanks for your input!! i am soooo confused. i called IT but they still haven't called back yet. this is bugging me really bad. all that stuff on the forum makes no sense to me. haha this is awful... On Monday, August 25, 2008 at 5:57 am, Charlie Hadden wrote: >Have her try to D/L either AVG or Avast free. See if they will install. These are >full service AVs and work well in most configurations. Colleges are the worst when >it comes to network policy. >I had to contact some people at Rutgers and they wanted me to use their version of >instant messaging for the discussion. But when signing up for the IM they not only >asked for my SSN but asked for it on a no-SSl (not secured) page. These people are >little more than students themselves. Your daughter is better off using a satellite >or cell connection like that new Verizon being advertised. At least for the short >term. It may not be as fast but if she looses her personal identification info or >some research papers due to hack or something it would cost you more to fix that >mess. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Network Sharing/College/Security Sunday, August 31, 2008 at 7:51 am Posted by Norm (1374 messages posted) Update, IT got the AntiVirus installed and I turned her firewall back on and got the sharing settings all tuned off. All seems well. Thanks for all of the input!! On Tuesday, August 26, 2008 at 4:07 am, Norm wrote: >Talked to my daughter last night. She has a appointment with IT today. Hopefully >they will get their AntiVirus(Sophos) installed. That is the best I can hope for >at this point. I have always been the one to work on her system and to try to walk >her through stuff on the phone is very difficult. Here is what she replied when I >sent her a link to this post. Pretty funny. Thanks for your input!! > >i am soooo confused. >i called IT but they still haven't called back yet. >this is bugging me really bad. >all that stuff on the forum makes no sense to me. >haha this is awful... > > > [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Network Sharing/College/Security Sunday, August 31, 2008 at 10:50 am Posted by Roger (4 messages posted) Sounds like a happy ending...glad to hear it. -Roger [Reply or follow-up to this message] Tip: Use one of the [Reply or follow-up to this message] links above to add a message to this thread Search this forum Start a new thread on a different subject Report abuse of the forum Return to the Windows Vista Discussion Forum