Anti Virus Firewall killed the File Server

In the past year or two I have noticed the same issues coming up again and again. Each of the issues have been resolved by deactivating or configuring the firewall component of the installed Anti Virus software.

I have noticed it mostly on McAfee and Symantic Anti Virus.

The issues that can be solved by deactivating or configuring your firewall are:

1. No file share access to computer with firewall on it.
2. No shared printer access.
3. Cannot see some or all computers on the network.
4. Cannot get to email server.

So if you ever have the above problems check the configuration of your firewall and make sure it is correct. Obviously I would recommend that you keep the firewall activated but you can deactivate it just to check that the firewall is the cause of your problems.

This saved me a lot of time. I hope it does the same for you.