SmoothWall – Allowing Windows Updates and Windows Activation

KB ID 0000441 

Problem

I’ve had fun this week installing a new virtual environment for a client with a SmoothWall firewall. It took a call to SmoothWall support for me to get Windows updates to work, then after activating a few 2008 R2 servers via phone, I was motivated to get online activation running as well.

Windows Activation Error – (We are being blocked by the SmoothWall Proxy).

A problem occurred when Windows tried to activate. Error Code 0x8004FE33

Windows Update Error – (We are being blocked by the SmoothWall Proxy).

A error occurred while checking for new updates for your computer Code 80072EFD

Solution

1. Connect to the web management console of the SmoothWall. Select Guardian > User defined categories.

2. Select the “User Defined Categories” tab.

3. Give the Category a name > Set Filter type to “Content and URL filtering” > Copy and paste in the domains listed below > Then click “Add”.

Domains Required for Windows Update

[box]

windowsupdate.microsoft.com
update.microsoft.com
c.microsoft.com
download.windowsupdate.com
genuine.microsoft.com

[/box]

Domains Required for Windows Activation

[box]

sls.microsoft.com
wer.microsoft.com
connect.microsoft.com
go.microsoft.com
sls.microsoft.com
crl.microsoft.com
microsoft.com

[/box]

Note: These are the top level domains.

4. Select the “Filters” tab > Give it a name > Set the filter type to “Content and URL filtering” > Expand “Good” content > Tick “Software Updates”.

5. Scroll down and expand “User Defined” > Locate the user defined category you created in step 3 and tick it > Click Add.

6. Select the Policy tab > Groups = All groups > Change the filter to the one you created in step 4 > Time period = Always >Action = Allow > Tick “Enabled” > Add.

7. From the menu select Guardian > Authentication > Settings.

8. Scroll down to the “Do not require authentication for these domains….” section > Paste in the domains you also pasted in in step 3 > Click “Save and Restart”.

 

Related Articles, References, Credits, or External Links

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