title: Disable Windows Firewall popup for automated tests
body: <p>We are running automated tests from Visual Studio. Some of these tests needs to communicate with a temporary <a href="http://redis.io/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Redis</a> server and we therefore launch <code>redis-server.exe</code> in a <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms684161(v=vs.85).aspx" rel="nofollow noreferrer">JobObject</a> during test execution. </p>
  
  <p>The <code>redis-server.exe</code> executable file is deployed to the test run directory by declaring <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.visualstudio.testtools.unittesting.deploymentitemattribute.aspx" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><code>[DeploymentItem("redis-server.exe")]</code></a>.</p>
  
  <p>This works fine except that for every test run an annoying Windows Firewall popup is displayed:</p>
  
  <p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/a45bg.png" alt="enter image description here"></p>
  
  <p><strong>Is it possible to prevent this popup from being displayed?</strong></p>
  
  <p>Would it, for example, be possible to tell Windows that any <code>redis-server.exe</code> located under a specific directory is allowed to use the network?</p>
  
  <p>This is particularly annoying because the dialog fulfills no purpose in this case. No matter whether I choose to click on <em>Allow access</em> or <em>Cancel</em> or even just ignore the popup, the tests will still complete. However, a new firewall rule is created every time. </p>