If you are having a hard-time to get storagenode to connect through mainly the forwarded TCP and UDP ports on a Windows machine chances are that storagenode is being blocked by the firewall.

Using a Graphical User Interface

To solve this do the following via GUI:

1. Enter the "Control Panel".
2. Search for "Windows Firewall with Advanced Security".
3. Once in the Windows firewall with Advanced Security click on "Inbound Rules".
4. The in the "Actions" list on the right-hand side click on "New Rule…".
5. Once in the "New Inbound Rule Wizard" select the "Port" option and click on "Next".
6. Next Select "TCP" and "All Local Ports" or just the Storj Share port range (e.g. 28967) in "Specific Local ports" and click "Next".
7. Select "Allow the connection" and hit "Next" again.
8. Select all three rules (Domain, Private and Public) and click "Next".
9. Now enter a description (e.g. "Storj Ports") and click finish.

Create a second rule with a different name in the same way as described for the TCP port, but now for the UDP port.

Now the firewall inbound rules has been set.

If you have any blocking rule in your outbound rules, we now have to do the same thing for the outbound rule. Click on "Outbound Rule" and make an outgoing rule with your PC host and any port as a source and any host and any port as destination.

Using PowerShell

Execute in the elevated (with Administrator's rights) PowerShell:

New-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName "Storj v3 TCP" -Direction Inbound -Protocol TCP -LocalPort 28967 -Action allow
New-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName "Storj v3 UDP" -Direction Inbound -Protocol UDP -LocalPort 28967 -Action allow

Now the firewall inbound rules has been set.