Oh right, I should have guessed that myself Anyway, you should be able to configure this from your answer file. If you've got the XP Deployment Tools (you should ), look up the [WindowsFirewall] section in the Preinstallation Reference (ref.chm). As far as I can tell, you'll need to add something like this: [WindowsFirewall] Profiles=WindowsFirewall.DefaultProfile [WindowsFirewall.DefaultProfile] Type=3 (0=domain type, 1=standard type, 3=both) Mode=1 (0=firewall disabled, 1=enabled) IcmpSettings=WindowsFirewall.EchoRequest [WindowsFirewall.EchoRequest] Type=8 (specifies InboundEchoRequest message type) Mode=1 (enables specified message type) I've never used these settings myself, so there may be something missing, but basically this should do it. You can configure multiple firewall profiles, for instance one for the domain type and one for the standard type, multiple ICMP settings sections, and a lot of other settings. Check ref.chm for details. Hope this helps!