Enabling Necessary Firewall Rules for Remote Shutdown

I have started using a piece of software that can remotely shut a PC down.

This requires that two inbound firewall rules are enabled.

These are….

Windows Firewall Remote Management (RPC)
Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI-In)

Both of these appear in the firewall as default disabled and of course need to be set to enabled. Not understanding the ramifications of enabling these, I of course only want to enable them on my Private network. BUT both rules are for Private AND Public networks.

Do you think it is safe to enable these or should I duplicate both rules, setting two as Private and two as Public so I can just enable the Private ones while leaving the Public ones disabled??

Pocah said:

should I duplicate both rules, setting two as Private and two as Public so I can just enable the Private ones while leaving the Public ones disabled

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Yes.


Denis

Pocah said:

I have started using a piece of software that can remotely shut a PC down.

Click to expand...

I’d be interested to know how you go with this. WOL has been a battle for me since some time during Windows 10, or maybe it was Windows 8.1?
I was able to start and shutdown my system from anywhere I was, with an APP on my phone called INET. Now I don’t even bother attempting to set it up on the PC.

Oh, you know what? The first of the two rules isn't there in Win 11.
My guess is that the name has changed. It is now Windows Defender Firewall Remote Management (RPC)
Does this sound reasonable?
I will give it a go and see what happens.
The app, by the way, WOL Aquila.
So far, I have the WOL part working, but having spied the Shutdown I thought I would try that too.

Well, something beyond my pay grade happened. Lol.
When I copied the rules, and changed them to Private, and enabled them, all of the WOL stopped working. LOL!!! Very unexpected.
I deleted the new rules, and hey-presto, it's all working again.
I can't explain that.

It sounds like the rules you created were ones that Blocked access.

Denis

Pocah said:

My guess is that the name has changed

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Yes.
The new name has been in use in Windows 10 as well for an unknown period.
It sounds like your utility is not up to date.


Denis

Try3 said:

Yes.
The new name has been in use in Windows 10 as well for an unknown period.
It sounds like your utility is not up to date.


Denis

Click to expand...

Yes, it's the Help documentation that seems to be wrong.

Try3 said:

It sounds like the rules you created were ones that Blocked access.

Denis

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Yes, it's most odd. They defintely say "allow" and shouldn't even affect the WOL, but are... I can't yet explain it.

I will try enabling the original rules and see what happens. Although I only copy and pasted them, so I can't see that I did anything wrong.

I've given up. Even when I deleted the new rule and enabled the old rule (on Private and Public) the shutdown doesn't work, so this is a pointless exercise.