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First, an exclaimer: Particularly, i do not want to completely "Disable Windows Firewall notifications via registry" nor to completely disable all and every notification of every windows service. Thus, existing answers are not matching.

Now to the topic: Being at a point in an actual (manual) reinstall of windows 10 Home edition where i started minimizing attack surfaces, i had restricted the firewall to whitelisting (instead of the default blacklisting for outgoing operations), deactivated two network adapter entries i will never ever use (one being the "host only adapter" of VirtualBox, the other being the "VPN adapter" of Teamviewer) and directed the firewall to log everything going through the one remaining network adapter.

A few seconds after the last action, i got a warning in the system tray and a red cross over the defender icon in the system tray.

I would like to get rid of those two things, but without demolishing any other useful warning feature. And i want to keep the whitelisting rules i have set up for the firewall in place.

The reason i want to get rid of that particular warning is:

  1. The warning is wrong. Truth is, the firewall in the default setting is seriously below my wanted level of security. Blacklisting is snake oil on its own, thus will never be accepted. The firewall setting i adapted is the least level of access limitation i want to have in place, and it is already a whole class above of (better than) Microsofts default settings.

  2. The warning is useless. Since it is a wrong interpretation of some badly programmed overwatching subprocess in the background, it is polluting this otherwise useful feature of warning system. In result, i would not become aware of eventually raising real (or at least: new) problems as long as those get the same type of notification. Since there would be no change in appearance at the UI.

When i try to "restore" the firewall settings in an attempt to "repair" the problem, the firewall rules get completely wiped and restored to their defaults. Thus, that is no solution either.

Any ideas how to tackle this?

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  • Click on the Defender icon and then on the Firewall section and report on the warning message.
    – harrymc
    Commented May 14, 2018 at 14:36
  • Click on the Defender icon: OK, opens "Windows Defender Security Center" Then on the Firewall section: impossible, since that place is already occupied by the warning "Die Windows Defender Firewall verwendet Einstellungen, die Ihr Gerät gefährden könnten" (the windows defender firewall uses settings that could harm your device - or so). Below that is a button "Einstellungen wiederherstellen" (restore settings), which, when applied, wipe all rules completely back to their defaults (snake oil settings).
    – White-Gandalf
    Commented May 14, 2018 at 14:55
  • P.S.: Under "Systemsteuerung\Alle Systemsteuerungselemente\Sicherheit und Wartung", it tells me the firewall being completely switched off. What is completely wrong. I have no clou about which action triggered this level of wrongfulness in this system.
    – White-Gandalf
    Commented May 14, 2018 at 15:08
  • How did you restrict the firewall to whitelisting?
    – harrymc
    Commented May 14, 2018 at 15:16
  • That was the setting of "outgoing" connections to "blocked". After that, only registered exceptions are allowed to telephone out. Thanks for helping with experimenting by the way: In the long run, it triggered me to look at the right place (see "solution" answer).
    – White-Gandalf
    Commented May 14, 2018 at 15:26

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Solution: Before deactivating the unused network adapters, i decided to remove them from the list of "protected network connections" (german: "Geschützte Netzwerkverbindungen").

This is something you obviously are not expected to do. Maybe it would work if those adapters get DELETED, but DEACTIVATING them is not enough to allow them to be removed from that list of "protected network connections". Despite them to be no more visible in that list after deactivation.

Thus, to tackle the problem, i reactivated the network adapters, then reapplied the checkboxes in that ominous list, then deactivated them again.

Now, the warning is gone.

Thanks for helping to experiment!

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