MSN Port??

[DQuaN]

A customer wants me to stop her employees from using MSN Messenger at work, so I have blocked port 1863 on their firewall.

MSN still works.

Does anyone know of any other ports I need to block or why it hasn't worked?

 

[Flerbizky]

A customer wants me to stop her employees from using MSN Messenger at work, so I have blocked port 1863 on their firewall.

MSN still works.

Does anyone know of any other ports I need to block or why it hasn't worked?

MSN uses more than one port - 135, 137-139 and 445 if I'm not entirely mistaken. But blocking all these may be a problem as other services might use them as well - What kinda Firewall do they have ?... Most Firewalls I've been around (Cisco, SonicWall and D-link) all have a setting to block Messenger specific trafic...

 

[GilesGuthrie]

I would recommend disabling it in Group Policy.

This works for XP machines:

1. Click Start, click Run, type gpedit.msc, and then click OK.
2. In Group Policy, expand Local Computer Policy, expand Computer Configuration, expand Administrative Templates, expand Windows Components, and then expand Windows Messenger.
3. Double-click Do not allow Windows Messenger to be run, and then click Enabled.
4. Click OK.
5. On the File menu, click Exit to quit the Group Policy snap-in.

 

[Casio]

A customer wants me to stop her employees from using MSN Messenger at work, so I have blocked port 1863 on their firewall.

MSN still works.

Does anyone know of any other ports I need to block or why it hasn't worked?

I think I heard somewhere MSN changes to port 80 if 1863 is blocked, and you obviously can't block port 80. Other then that I have no idea.

 

[Gen.]

Remove MSN ?

 

[DQuaN]

I have created a Group Policy from the server which should filter down to all the machines, but MSN is still running.

Giles, would the fact that they are running MSN 7.5 and MSN Live where the policy only blocks Windows Messenger cause a problem?

 

[GilesGuthrie]

I have created a Group Policy from the server which should filter down to all the machines, but MSN is still running.

Giles, would the fact that they are running MSN 7.5 and MSN Live where the policy only blocks Windows Messenger cause a problem?

I think that the coding in Messenger is a bit off, and there's quite a variance between different versions of it, so it is possible that a single GPO may not prevent all versions from running.

Do you know the installation path of the exe that runs Messenger on the client's machines? If so, you should be able to add that to the list of forbidden applications in your Group Policy.

 

[DQuaN]

I would guess the standard Program files\MSN Messenger.

 

[Gen.]

Actually there is Program Files/MSN Messenger AND Program Files/Messenger.

 

[guska]

How about removing Messenger, and then forbidding the usergroup from installing applications?