How do people handle applying firewall rules to Scoop apps?

[Gitoffthelawn]

There are 3 possible fully qualified pathnames to specify an app installed via Scoop:

1. C:\Users\username\scoop\shims\appname.exe
2. C:\Users\username\scoop\apps\appname\current\appname.exe
3. C:\Users\username\scoop\apps\appname\version_number\appname.exe

In Windows 11 (and likely earlier versions of Windows too), Windows Firewall rules only function properly with the last one (number 3). But that's a big problem because every time Scoop updates an app, that pathname becomes invalid. Thus the firewall rule becomes invalid, and network traffic is either inappropriately allowed or blocked.

How are people handling this conundrum?

[ruizlenato]

Same problem

[Gitoffthelawn]

I have written a fairly complex PowerShell script - actually 2 scripts - to resolve this issue (and others). I use them myself, but they are not ready to publish. I'll likely publish them once I have a free block of time. Unfortunately, that won't be any time soon, but doing so is near the top of my list.

[eugenesvk]

This should be solved by scoop by always installing to a permanent persistent path and then using symlinks to indicate version instead of using regular folder for the latest version and symlinking to it

• so upvote this feature request [Feature] Install apps into current folder #5234

Meanwhile, you can use a proper filewall that allows using flexible path rules. For example, you can use Portmaster, which allows you to define path rules using Regex, so you can add something like
^[CD]:\\App\\scoop\\apps\\aria2\\[\d\.\-]+\\aria2c.exe$
which will match any aria2 version as long as the version format remains the same (or you can have a more flexible rule and match any format version) and also works even if you move your scoop apps to a different drive