How to Add Inbound/Outbound Rule to specific port on Windows 2008 Firewall with Advanced Security

Windows Server 2008 has enhanced the firewall security to have more functions!

• New Interface (MMC Snap-in) to configure the firewall
• Ability to filter inbound and outbound traffic
• Firewall can work together with IPSEC encryption configuration much better
• Ability to create firewall rules (exception) for Windows AD Group, Protocol number, TCP/UDP Port, interface, IPv6 traffic and ICMP

Windows 2008 R2 and SQL Server 2008 R2 - DTC

First of all, I hit a Distributed Transaction Coordinator issue with my .NET application after deployed it on the network. The OS in client machine is Windows 7, and server machine is running on Windows 2008 R2 64 bit and SQL Server 2008 R2.

The error below would prompt once the client machine attempting to access database server machine:

The partner transaction manager has disabled its support for remote/network transaction.

I found out the cause is incorrect network access in component services on the servers. The network access of DTC in all servers should be enabled

Following is the procedure to enable it on Windows Server 2008 R2

1. Click Start, click Run, type dcomcnfg and then click OK to open Component Services.

2. In the console tree, click to expand Component Services, click to expand Computers, click to expand My Computer, click to expand Distributed Transaction Coordinator and then click Local DTC.

3. Right click Local DTC and click Properties to display the Local DTC Properties dialog box.

4. Click the Security tab.

5. Set the following options on the Security tab of the Local DTC Properties dialog box and click OK
   
   
   
   

6. Open the Control Panel, open Windows Firewall, and click Change settings to display Windows Firewall Settings.

7. Click the Exceptions tab.

8. Check the box for Distributed Transaction Coordinator and click OK.