Bypass Windows domain policy firewall settings

If the Windows Firewall settings are locked on your computer because of a Windows domain policy, and you are also the administrator of the computer, you may still need to be able to configure the firewall.

Solution

1. Make sure you are not connected to the Windows domain network.
2. Open the Registry Editor (regedit).
3. Navigate to the following key:

   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\WindowsFirewall

4. Delete the WindowsFirewall key.
5. Reboot the computer, which is necessary for Windows to re-apply the policies stored in the registry.

Note that the policy will be applied again the next time the computer connects to the domain and refreshes group policy.