Closing the PPTP Port Under Windows 2000?

phnork asks: "I have asked many skilled Win2K users and networking specialists how to close Port 1723 in my Win2K system. I have searched the net unsuccessfully, browsed news groups, asked my ISP techies, and even asked my wife. But, although all agree the port normally used for PPTP (VPN) should not be open, no one has taken the time to document how nor post the solution where it can be found. In fact, I have found that most security issues that abound in the Wide World of Windows occur because those in the know, do not. Not even Microsoft! If they did, the solution would be as easy and straight forward as setting up a printer. Networks and security are still relegated to the nether worlds of the 80s where we used to have problems with every printer installation and computers were hauled to a grinding stop by the inability of the protocol lords to arrive at a consensus. But, maybe now the solution is at hand. Now that I have asked for help maybe someone will come forward with those super words, 'Try this...'." What other hard-to-close ports have you found open in your Win2k install. What did you have to do to close them?

Comments

OT, but of interest?

[twilight30]

My firm changed routers 2 weeks ago. With the defaults, all the other boxes (Windows) can browse, send/receive mail, etc; however my Linux box can't.

Even my VMware XP inside Linux can get on (it's how I write this message at the moment) but Linux proper is blocked.

traceroute shows incredible lag, ping is slow, and DNS is slowed to a crawl. How the hell would the router do this?

The guy who installed the router (**Not me!**) doesn't have a clue how to fix it, and the router's support people haven't deigned to reply to several e-mails. Googling for the router brand and model (among other searches) doesn't seem to help.

I have noticed that the Win mail clients sometimes will bomb the router into submission, and as a result the router will need to be reset. Increasing the router timeouts doesn't seem to help. Moreover, the router has no information in its firewall set that blocks my static IP in particular.

If someone could just point me to a resource I'd be most grateful.

She knows?

[Johnny Mnemonic]

I have searched the net unsuccessfully, browsed news groups, asked my ISP techies, and even asked my wife.

If this is something that she might know, I suggest you improve your communication. If it's not, why did you bother? On the off-chance that she was bored from playing Minesweeper one day, so went tooling through her firewall configuration file?