Setup Windows Firewall on a Domain Controller

If you would like to enable Windows Firewall on a domain controller, you will want to consider the following exceptions to the firewall before going live. These exceptions are necessary if you want domain authentication and file and print sharing. I would also recommend enabling these ports so only the local network is the exception. Allowing “outside” access may be hazardous to your server’s health.

Enable program exceptions for lsass.exe and ntfrs.exe.exe which are found under %windir%\system32.

Enable port exceptions for ports 53 (TCP and UDP), 88 (TCP and UDP), 123 (UDP), 135 (TCP), 137 (TCP), 389 (UDP), 464 (TCP and UDP) and 636 (TCP).

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Fix a crashing print spooler service.

The other day I was battling with a continuously crashing print spooler service. It seemed like every two minutes the service would stop and start again. Trying to diagnose the cause of this problem can be very frustrating, because MANY things can cause behavior like this. One of the first things I looked at was recently installed software. If you can make a correlation between new software (including Windows “patches”) and your crashing service problem, more than likely it is an issue with the newly installed software.

Unfortunatley, that wasn’t the case for me. I reviewed the event logs and it looked like it basically started “out-of-the blue”. I did a little searching and came across the idea that it might be a corrupt printer driver.

To apply the fix, I took the printer driver out of the equation. To do this, simply navigate to the following directory:
c:\windows\system32\spool\drivers\w32×86

You must either change the name or move the w32×86 directory and reboot your machine. (Don’t worry a new directory will be created.)

Once you have accomplished this and all seems to be well with your machine, you may have to re-add your printers and/or printer drivers.

This little trick fixed my printer problem, hopefully it will fix yours!