If Advanced Port Scanner says a port is closed, how can I open it? It says this even when (so far as I know) there is no firewall active for the machine. APC is running on the machine itself.

I am trying to open ports 5556 and 5559 for TCP and UDP traffic both inbound and outbound, so that a voip webcast client will work.

Windows 2000 with all patches applied.

Tech support folks for the webcast voip client were not helpful.

Clark

Ok, a little explanation.

When Windows program needs to RECEIVE data from network, it informs Windows that it will use a specific port. If no other program uses this port, Windows marks it as "open" and program can reseive data from it.

So, if you connect to another machine directly, closed port can means one of following:

1. No program was started to wait data on this port.
2. Network is misconfigured or has errors, so Windows can't mark port as "open". In this case examine program log for details.

But on real networks direct computer-to-computer connections are common only inside one small LAN. In most cases, you will meet a chain of servers, routers and firewall between you and target machines. To connect to a remote port all this intermediate machines must FORWARD yor request. If one of them fails by any reason (configuration, sequrity etc.) than your request just don't follow to target machine and port appears "closed".

If you have any other questions about ports -feel free to ask it in our "network administration" forum.

Best regards, Gregor Petrov, Famatech support team.