Removing the manager does not remove the firewall — or its rules. What actually happens when you uninstall Windows Firewall Control, and how to leave the machine in the state you intend.
People uninstall this tool expecting one of two wrong things: that their PC will be left with no firewall, or that every rule they ever made will vanish with the icon. Neither happens. Because the tool only ever managed Windows' own rules, the uninstall has a very specific and predictable footprint — here it is, step by step.
Because the tool never kept its own private rulebook. Every allow and block you approved was written as an ordinary rule inside Windows Defender Firewall. Removing the manager removes the tray icon, the prompts and the log view — the rules themselves stay exactly where Windows keeps all its rules, and Windows keeps enforcing them.
The program's uninstaller offers a choice worth reading: it can restore the settings that existed before the tool was installed, or leave the current ruleset as it is. Decide before you click, not after. Restoring is right if you are abandoning the experiment entirely; keeping the rules is right if you are moving to managing them by hand or by policy.
The one real surprise after uninstall: a program you once blocked stays blocked, and now there is no tray icon and no log to explain why it fails. If, after removing the tool, some app cannot connect, the answer is to open Windows Firewall with Advanced Security (wf.msc), find the outbound rule naming that program, and delete or disable it there. The rules were always Windows rules; you just changed which desk you manage them from.
There is a heavier option: resetting Windows Firewall to its defaults wipes every custom rule — yours and the tool's alike — and returns to the factory state. That is a deliberate, destructive choice: legitimate rules other software installed go too, and some programs will need to re-ask or be re-allowed. Use it only when a ruleset is genuinely beyond untangling, never as a routine tidy-up.
Whichever way you decide, do one thing first: use the tool's export to save the current ruleset to a file. If you keep the rules, the export is a backup against future accidents. If you restore the old settings and later miss the tuned ruleset, the export is your way back without a week of prompts. And if you are only removing the tool because you are moving to a new PC, that same file is how your carefully built rules travel with you.
wf.msc. Any tool — this one, a script, or Group Policy — is only ever editing that same list. Uninstall with that picture in mind and there are no surprises.
Profiles, prompts and rules — the whole Firewall Control walkthrough is in the video.
▶️ Watch Full VideoNo. Windows Defender Firewall is a Windows component, not part of the tool. It keeps running after uninstall. What you lose is the prompts, the profiles shortcut and the readable log — not the protection.
Yes. Open Windows Firewall with Advanced Security (wf.msc). Every rule the tool created appears there as a normal inbound or outbound rule and can be edited, disabled or deleted like any other.
Restore if you want the PC back exactly as it was before installation. Keep the current rules (do not restore) if your prompts built a ruleset you are happy with and you simply no longer want the manager program itself.