Firewalls, firewalls, how I love thee!
As I’m sure most of you know initial setup/connectivity is the biggest issues with MCX. One of the primary reasons setup fails is because of 3rd party firewalls installed on the Media Center PC blocking the ports we need. MCX setup will configure Windows Firewall in MCE2005 and Windows Vista to automatically allow MCX to work. We also have worked with both McAfee and Symantec to ensure their products will auto-configure to allow MCX (and the rest of MCE) to work. If you’re having problems with either McAfee or Symantec firewalls not auto-configuring themselves please let me a comment with the version of the product.
But there are many other firewalls out there that do not auto-configure themselves. This means you will have to manually configure the firewall to allow the ports/binaries we use. Here is the list (they are different between MCE2005 and Vista):
MCE2005: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/mediacenter/extender/setup/firewall/config.mspx
Windows Vista: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/mediacenter/firewall.mspx
I also want to clear up some misconceptions I see on the xbox forums: the firewall on your router/internet gateway device is not filtering traffic on your home network; it is filtering traffic from the Internet to your home network. As such it’s not affecting your ability to get your MCX connected to your MCE. You should not fiddle with the firewall settings on this device when having connectivity issues.
