Port forwarding generally means redirecting the computer signals to follow some specific path into your computer.Port forwarding is done to host online games and allow remote access to the computers.It intercepts the traffic bound for a certain IP and Port configuration and then redirects to some different IP or port.Port forwarding allows remote computers to directly connect to other computer within a private LAN.Port forwarding is oftenly required while trying to create your own Dedicated server to host multiplayer games on Internet.Port forwarding can be achieved by any application running on the host or directly through the hardware like router or firewall settings.Port forwarding helps in increasing your download speeds and game speeds.Every application in the computer is usually programmed to send its packet through some specific ports like in case of HTML Pages we have to open port 80 and for FTP file transfer we have to open port 21 But sometimes we need to do reconfigure the port settings for some of the applications and that’s the place where we need to do Port forwarding like in multiplayer games for example in Word of Warcraft we have to open 3724 ports and in Call of Duty:Modern Warfare we need to open 28960 ports.This is done because Windows firewall tends to block all the unwanted ports for safety reasons.Port forwarding provides an excellent way to preserver the public IP addresses and protects the servers from unauthorized access.For port forwarding you will require four basic things – a router,LAN,Internet Connection and Simple Port forwarding Software.Simple port forwarding is the best software to perform port forwarding in a very easy way.This program has a huge database of known ports for more than 700+ programs and games.So here is a simple procedure on Setting Up Port Forwarding in Windows 7
Setting Up Port Forwarding in Windows 7 Using Simple Port forwarding Software
1) First of all you need to download Simple Port forwarding software and Install it.You can download it from here(Download Link).
2) Then you need to select your router model from a given list of router info and then Login to your router settings.You can open your router settings by typing the IP as htttp://192.168.1.1 or htttp://192.168.0.1 in your Web Browser and then it asks for a username and Password.Generally the username is admin and password is also admin for most of the routers.You can find your router default username and password from here (Find)
3) Then set your IP to a static IP if needed by the application(optional).Not always required.If you have a dynamic IP then set it to static IP.
4) Then it asks for which ports you need to port forward where you will be provided with a database of applications where you can choose your application and select the number of ports you want to port forward for the application where you can enter the number of ports you want to port forward.If application in not included in the database then you can manually add it to the database.
5) Then click on update the router settings and Save your settings.
6) Now add the ports to firewall by clicking Add the ports to Windows firewall option
7) Test your ports and ensure that your ports are successfully opened
8) Now you are successfully done
Setting Up Port Forwarding in Windows 7 Without Using Software
*Alternatively you can manually Port forward the ports without using the software but it sometimes it becomes difficult to do
1) For this you need to first login to your router settings by typing the IP as htttp://192.168.1.1 or htttp://192.168.0.1 in your Web Browser and then it asks for a username and Password.Generally the username is admin and password is also admin for most of the routers.You can find your router default username and password from here (Find)
2) Look for Advance settings in the router configuration there you will find an option for Port forwarding.It differs for each router and so it becomes difficult to manually locate the Port forwarding Settings in the router.
3) Then Enter your application name and fill the desired ports that you want to port forward.If you want to open a single port then type the same port number in the start and end field entry.
4) Then Enter your IP address.You can check your IP address by manually typing ipconfig in the Command Prompt.
5) Save your router settings and you are done
Note – Don’t Forget to add the ports to Windows Firewall else it will not work and please do not open all the ports because it will allow hackers access to your computer
