Most network administrators have typically disabled the Windows Firewall in the past just because there was no efficient way to manage it. Windows Server 2008 has provided a solution to this with additions to group policy. These group policy settings allow you to manage inbound, outbound, and ipsec filtering on Windows Vista machines.
You can access all of these group policy settings from the Server 2008 group policy management MMC snap in under Computer Configuration\Policies\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Windows Firewall with Advanced Security\Windows Firewall with Advanced Security. Right clicking any of the listed options will allow you to create new rules for the firewall. Remember, these settings can only be used to configure the firewall on Windows Vista systems as most of the options listed are not supported on Windows XP machines.
