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The PC with which I have network troubles has Windows 7 Embedded (WES).

From this PC it's possible to connect to other machines and devices through different ports, but this machine doesn't allow incoming connections (e.g. for ping or VNC). Most obvious would be is to check the firewall settings, but this isn't possible since there is by default no GUI present for the firewall, although there is the Windows Firewall-service. For testing I disabled this firewall and tried to connect again. Same result.

It is possible to add extra packages after the installation of an embedded Windows, see: http://reboot.pro/topic/16383-windows-embedded-standard-7-add-packages-on-a-live-image/

Firstly I added all the packages which seemed networking/firewall packages, but this didn't help. I reached the situation where the firewall was present in the Control Panel, but without buttons to interact. Then I added all other packages (excluding the extra languages) and it resulted in the situation that Windows wouldn't start anymore.

After this I went back to a backup of the OS and stopped the Windows Firewall-service again.

Thus, the question is to make sure incoming connections to this machine are allowed.

Note: Security (and having a firewall) is no issue here, since this is about a network separated from the internet and company network.

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The solution was not to stop the firewall, but to change the startup of the Windows Firewall-service to "Disabled" and then to reboot the PC.

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    Just like to point out that this is still valid in 2019 for Windows 10. Solved my issue with WAMP Aug 4, 2019 at 17:16
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Something else that causes these exact same symptoms is the Windows 7 Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) service.

I just resolved a situation where one of my Windows 7 PCs that was running ICS could ping any of my other Windows 7 PCs (none of which are running ICS) but as soon as I tried to ping the PC running ICS from any of my other PCs I received a "Request timed out" error. The funny thing about this (and something that made finding the problem much more difficult) was that I could ping the ICS PC successfully if the ICS PC hadn't previously pinged the PC I was using to ping the ICS PC! If the ICS PC had already pinged the PC I was using to ping the ICS PC I would always get the "Request timed out" error from the ICS PC. But if the ICS PC thought it hadn't already pinged the PC I was using to ping the ICS PC (as in bootup or when the network adapter is disabled then renabled on the ICS PC) I could successfully ping the ICS PC from another PC.

I replicated the problem by turning ICS on and off on the ICS PC. With ICS turned off, pings from my non-ICS Windows 7 PCs worked perfectly. With ICS turned on, inbound pings were blocked by the ICS PC - but only if the PC I was using to ping the ICS PC had already been pinged by the ICS PC.

The ONLY reason I was running ICS at all was that it is a required component for mHotSpot, a nifty little utility that turns an Internet-connected PC into a wireless hotspot. Since my entire network is wired, not wireless, I needed a hotspot I could temporarily turn on and off for cell phone use.

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  • UPDATE: It turns out that mHotSpot is turning ICS on when it starts and turns it off when it stops. As long as mHotSpot is on, inbound pings to the mHotSpot computer will be rejected. Once mHotSpot is turned off, inbound pings will be processed correctly. Whether you use mHotSpot or not, if ICS is turned on, inbound pings will be blocked. Feb 21, 2017 at 19:20

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