How to Reset Windows Firewall in Windows 10

If you misconfigured the Windows Firewall in Windows 10 and it started giving you network issues, it is a good idea to reset it. By resetting it, all the custom rules will be removed, and the defaults will be restored. There are two ways to reset Windows Firewall in Windows 10. In this article, we'll review them both.

Windows Firewall is a great feature in modern Windows versions. It was introduced in Windows XP and improved in Service Pack 2. But the firewall was still very simple. It was good at securing inbound connections and protecting against simple threats.

Finally, Windows Vista redesigned the Firewall to be based completely on the Windows Filtering Platform API and IPsec integrated. It added outbound connection blocking and also introduced an advanced Control Panel called Windows Firewall with Advanced Security, which gave fine-grained control over configuring the firewall and made it robust. Further releases of Windows made the firewall smarter with multiple active profiles, coexistence with third-party firewalls, rules based on port ranges and protocols and several other improvements.

To restore the default Firewall configuration, you can use Windows Firewall with Advanced Security, or the console utility, netsh.exe. They will both allow you to revert the changes made to Windows Firewall all at once. This is very useful if you have messed up your firewall configuration accidentally or some application did it.

How to Reset Windows Firewall in Windows 10

Reset Firewall rules in Windows 10 using Windows Firewall with Advanced Security

To reset Firewall rules in Windows 10 using the Windows Firewall with Advanced Security tool, you need to do the following.

1. Open Settings.
2. Go to Network & internet - Status:
   
3. Scroll down in the right pane until you see the link "Windows Firewall". Click it.
   
4. The basic Windows Firewall configuration will be opened. On the left, click the link "Advanced settings":
   
5. Windows Firewall with Advanced Security will be opened. It looks as follows:
   
   Right click the root element in the left pane named Windows Firewall with Advanced Security on Local Computer:
6. In the context menu, select the item Restore Default Policy.
   
7. A confirmation dialog will appear on the screen. If you continue, Windows 10 will reset all settings of Windows Firewall which were made by you or by another app after the operating system was installed. Keep in mind that the current network connection will be disabled and then enabled again in order to apply the default firewall policy. So, to continue, click the Yes button:

Once you click the Yes button, your Firewall rules will be restored to defaults.

Reset Firewall rules in Windows 10 using Netsh

You can reset Windows Firewall in Windows 10 with a single command. Thanks to the built-in netsh command, it can be done quickly. You need to open an elevated command prompt first. Do it as follows.

1. Open a new elevated command prompt instance.
2. Type or copy-paste the following command and press the Enter key:

   netsh advfirewall reset

That should be enough. If everything went well, you should see the following in the command's output:

That's it. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to leave a comment.