After installing Windows Server 2008, I found I can’t ping the server, even within a “Private Network”. I like to ping stuff in my spare time, so this was distressing to me. I suspected to find a firewall issue, but was surprised to find enabling the Network Discovery option in the firewall configuration settings didn’t fix it.
Configure Windows Firewall Settings – File and Printer Sharing
By default, Windows Firewall for WIndows Server 2008 is configured to disallow File and Printer Sharing on the network. By default Windows Server 2008 firewall is configured with Windows Firewall running, and with File and Printer Sharing disabled. This blocks ICMP Echo Request packets used by the PING command. You can allow the server to respond to ping requests by doing the following:
- Turn off Windows Firewall on the Windows 2008 Server (not recommended)- OR –
- Enable the File and Printer Sharing option in Windows Firewall Configuration Settings
- Start > Control Panel > Network and Intranet
- Under the Windows Firewall section heading, Click the Allow a program through Windows Firewall link
- In the programs and ports list, check the File and Printer Sharing option
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Stuart's Tech Punch 
Thanks, this helped me this morning. I appreciate the blog post. 🙂
Thanks a lot, saved the day!
There must be a better solution than opening up the file and print sharing ports in the firewall? From a security standpoint it doesn’t make sense to open up the most “sensitive” ports on the box simply to allow response to ICMP ping requests.
Maybe, probably, and good point. In my case, I’m was just trying to get connectivity between virtual servers in a lab/test environment. Wasn’t terribly concerned about security.
Or, from the commandline on the machine,
netsh firewall set icmpsetting 8