How to open close ports manually?

Can anyone help how to open/close a port manually?
i want to do it and i would really appreciate it.

1. Click Start, point to All Programs, then Accessories, then Communications then Network Connections. (Or you can right click My Network Places on the desktop and choose Properties).
   
2. Right-click the Local Area Network or the connection you are using, then click Properties.
   
3. Click the Advanced tab, and then click Settings.
   
   Note: The Settings button is unavailable when ICF is disabled and all ports are already open.
   
   
4. Click Add to open a new port.
   
5. In the Description box, type a name. For example, type: File & Printer.
6. In the Name or IP address of the computer hosting this service on your network box, type 127.0.0.1.
   
7. In both the External and Internal port boxes, type the port number.
   
8. Click either TCP or UDP, and then click Ok.
   
9. Repeat steps 4 - 8 and allow the appropriate ports to be open for file and printer sharing. To allow file and print sharing traffic, create and enable the following service definitions. In the External and Internal Ports, allow these ports: UDP 137, UDP 138, UDP 445, and TCP 139, and TCP 445

Raves...how can i see my port number???
And how can i repeat those steps??? i want to create COD4 private server... but i need to open my ports so that others can join!

In order to see your port on your system, you need to open your command prompt (MS-DOS) and just type this netstat -an It will show you the following listing on your screen.

Quote:

---

Proto Local Address Foreign Address State
TCP 0.0.0.0:135 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING
TCP 0.0.0.0:445 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING
TCP 0.0.0.0:3260 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING

---

All the above LISTENING connections are your open ports of your system. For the above example ports 135, 445, and 3260 seems to be open. In the similar way you need to find out which port numbers are opened on your system.

You just need to follow the steps mentioned above these steps let you open the port available to join the other may join you, you just follow these steps and then let us know if any problem you are facing while setting up an ports.

ronin, i have typen in the netstan - an but it only shows for about an second or two! you are right, it shows the listings but only for a short time!

And yes, does anyone of you guys have Xfire or fb...

but how to open the ones who are closed? i can now see it in netstat...

i also hope!

Try this for more help : http://www.portforward.com/english/r...outerindex.htm

Hope this helps .