I have read so many posts in the forums with people saying that once you install NIS 2011, Windows will gracefully bow out and let Norton take over. And that has always been my understanding and in the past have always been able to confirm it. I guess I got too comfortable because on our other laptop which is identical to this one, this past re-boot came up, it was logged on to and then we got a message that Windows Firewall needed permission for our network USB hub to connect to the machine. Huh? Windows Firewall? No....Norton turns that off. I'm running Windows 7 Professional 64-bit with Norton Internet Security 2011. I went into the Control Panel, clicked on System and Security then Windows Firewall. The banner at the top states "These settings are being managed by vendor application Norton Internet Security".
In the dashboard to the left I clicked on Advanced Settings and became immediately confused. The same message about the settings being managed by NIS was at the top of the screen, but as you can see by the print screen I've attached, under Domain Profile, Private Profile is Active, and Public Profile it clearly states that Windows Firewall is on.
Is this a bug with Windows 7 Professional, is Norton no longer turning those settings off, or could one of the "critical" downloads from Microsoft have reset the firewall and turned it back on? When downloading I don't turn off Smart Firewall so I really don't know what happened because I just assumed they were automatically off. From what I've read I feel fine in turning it off and plan on doing so after posting this message.