Using Dynamic TCP ports rather than port 445

[Lakshmigopal]

As the title suggests can I use Dynamic TCP ports rather than port 445? Talking about my setup I am using Winodws AT command service for remote Windows machine. For this I want to set scheduler service to use dynamic ports of TCP instead of 445. I tried disabling NetBT from Advanced TCP./IP settings but it didn't helped. This is the reason for my question. Please help!

[Snake08]

How did you disabled NetBIOS over TCP? May be you have missed something. The following are the steps to disable NetBIOS over TCP/IP which forces all SMB traffic to be direct hosted:

1. Click Start, Settings, and then click Network and Dial-up Connection.
2. Right-click Local Area Connection, and then click Properties.
3. Click Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), and then click Properties.
4. Click Advanced.
5. Click the WINS tab, and then click Disable NetBIOS over TCP/IP.

[Big Fish]

You can surely close port 445 and there is no harm in this. However, then you will have to assign some other port for the operation that is handled by port 445. To close port 445, here are the steps:

• Go to Start, Run, type "regedit" and click OK.
• Navigate to HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\NetBT\Parameters.
• Search for "TransportBindName" value, right click on it and click "Modify".
• Empty field with title "Value data:".
• Click OK
• Exit registry and reboot your computer.

[HiSpeed]

Microsoft-DS Service is used for resource sharing on Windows 2000, XP and 2003. Port 445 is used to connect file shares for example. The port 445 is a service message block used by various operating systems to give security options at high levels. However, TCP Port 445 has recently become the target of LSASS exploiting worms like Sasser and Korgo. So you can close it and open some other ports instead. Here is how to open a new port:

1. Go to Start, and then My Network Places.
2. Click View Network Connections.
3. Right-click on the connection that you use for the Internet, and then click Properties.
4. Go to Advanced tab, and then Settings.
5. Click Add to open a new port.
6. In the Description box, type a friendly name.
7. In the Name or IP address of the computer hosting this service on your network box, type 127.0.0.1.
8. In the External port and Internal port boxes, type the port number. Generally, this number is the same.
9. Click either TCP or UDP, and then click OK.