Multiplayer - Windows firewall issues

For those of you who've made multiplayer games (LAN / Network / Internet) - how do you deal with the way that the first time Windows executes some of your network code and the game suddenly freezes because it wants to ask "Should I keep blocking your game from running on this person's machine" which can cause a full screen game to suddenly crash or the user often thinks that the game has crashed (and did not notice the little icon in the taskbar showing the game is still in progress) and so they start another session, which if Blitz3d will usually crash because it then cannot create another '3d scene'.

Basically - what's the best way to handle the Windows Firewall software in your multiplayer games.

A workaround I have thought of is to start the game in windowed mode, execute a basic network command, at which point windows firewall will intervene but because game is windowed will hopefully not cause it to crash, and then start the actual game 'proper'.

I hope that is clear...any thoughts and suggestions would be helpful.

Thanks,

You can add programs to the Windows Firewall exception list before starting.

If you go to Users in the control panel, change the way people log on and disable fast user switching, when you press control + alt + delete and select task mananger it will force you back to the desktop. This has saved my bacon many times.

Third option: use another firewall. Windows Firewall is TERRIBLE. And no fanboys please, you're lucky WF is even blocking your game. I've played plenty of multiplayer games where WF has had that block dialog box up but the game just worked anyway.

He isn't asking how best to handle it as a player. He wants to know a good way to handle it with his program, so it isn't that big of a pain in the ass for his users.

Well, the Windows firewall and other software walls you may beat, but I hardly doubt you can do it with external ones (Which come with routers etc)... So you may as well just provide some helpful tips about firewalls in your documentation and worry about something else.

I personally dont mind setting firewall settings for applications, it takes 2 minutes, and makes me feel in control of whats going from my PC to the network.

Dabz

Thanks for the replies,

I guess the way to go then is to provide documentation to the end user on how to allow my program to be ignored by their firewall software.

Thanks,
Matt

I think the launcher window workaround you described would be a good idea, also, in combination with the documentation suggested above. Possibly give the user the option to bypass the launcher window once they have their firewall configured.

People might wonder why your game is trying to access the internet right at startup tho, and decide to block it, fearing for their privacy.