Adding Windows Firewall Rules to a Group

Anyone who has used windows firewall, knows it is easier to create rules and configure, but hard to organize.

Though Windows Advanced Firewall interface shows a Group column, there is no easy way to set the group through UI.

In a recent task assigned to me, I wanted to organize my rules to several groups, that's when Powershell came in handy.

Let's say I have 5 rules I need to group. Currently they don't have a group.

I want to assign Rule 1, 2 and 3 to "My Group 1" and rule 4 and 5 to "My Group 2".

Get-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName 'My Rule 1' | ForEach { $_.Group = 'My Group 1'; Set-NetFirewallRule -InputObject $_ }

Get-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName 'My Rule 2' | ForEach { $_.Group = 'My Group 1'; Set-NetFirewallRule -InputObject $_ }

Get-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName 'My Rule 3' | ForEach { $_.Group = 'My Group 1'; Set-NetFirewallRule -InputObject $_ }

Get-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName 'My Rule 4' | ForEach { $_.Group = 'My Group 2'; Set-NetFirewallRule -InputObject $_ }

Get-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName 'My Rule 5' | ForEach { $_.Group = 'My Group 3'; Set-NetFirewallRule -InputObject $_ }

So in the firewall rule, first you fetch the firewall rule by using Get-NetFirewallRule cmdlet. Then for each result, you set the group to bying using $_.Group.

Result:

SQL Server Worker Threads

Here is my take on SQL Server Worker Threads and Max Worker Thread Setting.

What are Worker Threads

SQL Server, serve "Requests". Request is a logical representation of query or batch or system task (e.g. log update).

Requests can be served via one or more tasks. If it is serial request, one task works at a given time. But if it is a parallel request, multiple tasks can works at a given time.

SQL server spawn, worker to carry on a task. "Worker" is a logical representation of operating system thread. Worker threads are the backbone of SQL Server’s multitasking capabilities.

Max Worker Threads

If you go into SQL Server Properties page -> Processors section, you see a setting called "Maximum worker threads".

This controls how many maximum worker threads SQL server can spawn at a given time. Well Zero doesn't mean there will be none.

When setting is set to zero, SQL server use following formular to calculate maximum number or worker threads it can have:

On 86x processor -> 256 + ((No of Logical Processors – 4) * 8)

On 64x Processor -> 512 + ((No of Logical Processors – 4) * 16)

So if you have 64bit machine with 12 Logical processors, max worker count will be 640.

You can find this out easily by executing following query:

SELECT max_workers_count

FROM sys.dm_os_sys_info

You can set this value to a custom value. But you will find most of experts suggest to keep it default value and look for other issues for resolution.

References: Configure the max worker threads (server configuration option) - SQL Server | Microsoft Learn

Expert articles:

BrentOzar -> https://www.brentozar.com/archive/2020/01/three-reasons-to-temporarily-change-max-worker-threads/

Pinal Dave -> https://blog.sqlauthority.com/2018/06/15/sql-server-optimal-value-max-worker-threads/