Windows 7 and 3rd party firewall - disable windows firewall?

[Totality]

Back in the XP days if I installed a 3rd party firewall like Comodo I would disable the built in XP firewall too.

Is the same true for Windows 7? Install the firewall and disable the built in one to remove confilicts?

 

[Totality]

I know in theory you shouldn't need a software firewall when you have a router, but a year ago when using AVG my parents machine managed to get a rootkit keylogger installed. It went straight past AVG and the only thing that notified them it was there was a Comodo firewall popup saying an application was connecting to the internet in a weird way. They rang me and I remoted in and found it hidden away.

Have since moved away from AVG and onto Avast/MSE but you can never be too careful these days. I'm after application conrol hence the 3rd party solution.

 

[Totality]

AVG was the problem then as the firewall notified you. It would have gotten through firewall or no firewall, it was AVG's fault that it didn't pick it up. A better AV program like Avast or MSE as you mentioned should have stopped it.

You can install a 3rd party firewall and disable Windows Firewall, but it will only slow the system down more than it needs to.

Thanks for the advice people. I've installed Comodo now on Windows 7 and don't notice any performance drop.

With regard to Nymins saying the firewall wouldn't stop things, thanks to Comodo last time it stopped the keylogger uploading any of the log files. Without it the keylogger would never have been noticed. I'd rather run the firewall as a secondary defence against outgoing stuff than rely on just the AV program as none of them are 100%. Good AV and a good firewall is the best defence!

Cheers for the link to the Win 7 firewall config program. May have to have a look into that at some point