Windows 11 - Firewall behaviour before login?

[Neurone]

Hi everyone, I use Avast Business Security and mainly use the firewall to block unwanted connections from many apps.
I noticed each Windows user must set their own set of rules (against my expectation), and this raised two questions in my mind:

• Does Avast Firewall start working only after the user logs in to the account? If so, does this mean the machine is free to do whatever it wants during and after the startup process, or there's at least the Windows Firewall active? Because with Avast installed, the Windows firewall seems disabled, so this would mean I'm entirely unprotected before login.
• How can I set rules valid for all users applied from the start, regardless of whether the user logged in?

[Infratech Solutions]

Here is the guide to configure the firewall: https://businesshelp.avast.com/Content/ArticleLists/AfB_ManagementConsoles/ConfiguringSettingsandPolicies.htm

[Neurone]

Hi Infratech, thanks for the suggestions, but I'm not using Avast Business security, and not the Avast Business Hub.
My problem is not configuring the rules, I already do that, but to know:
1) if the firewall rules are applied before the users login (and from my experiments the answer is no!) and
2) if so, does this mean applications are free to do whatever they want if I don't login (because essentially the Avast Firewall is not started yet)?

[tomsc]

All security components are running including Firewall regardless if user is logged in or not. If you have issue with firewall I would go directly to support people.