Policy

Windows Defender Firewall: Prohibit unicast response to multicast or broadcast requests

Windows 11 25H2

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Policy overview

Key metadata and intent for this policy.

ClassComputer
CategoryWindows Defender Firewall > Standard Profile
Supported onAt least Windows XP Professional with SP2

Supported OS tags: Windows10, Windows10RT, Windows11, Windows7, Windows8, Windows81, WindowsRT, WindowsRT81, WindowsServer2008, WindowsServer2012, WindowsServer2012R2, WindowsServer2016, WindowsVista, WindowsXP

Prevents this computer from receiving unicast responses to its outgoing multicast or broadcast messages. If you enable this policy setting, and this computer sends multicast or broadcast messages to other computers, Windows Defender Firewall blocks the unicast responses sent by those other computers. If you disable or do not configure this policy setting, and this computer sends a multicast or broadcast message to other computers, Windows Defender Firewall waits as long as three seconds for unicast responses from the other computers and then blocks all later responses. Note: This policy setting has no effect if the unicast message is a response to a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) broadcast message sent by this computer. Windows Defender Firewall always permits those DHCP unicast responses. However, this policy setting can interfere with the NetBIOS messages that detect name conflicts.

Internal name
WF_UnicastResponseToMulticast_Name_2
Policy ID
63439d04278b
Elements
0

Registry values

How enabled and disabled states update the registry.

Registry locationTypeEnabled valueDisabled value
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\WindowsFirewall\StandardProfile\DisableUnicastResponsesToMulticastBroadcastREG_DWORD
1
0

Policy elements

Inputs and configuration options exposed by this policy.

This policy has no additional user input fields.

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