There are often times I need to disable all OS based firewalls in my lab environments for testing. My preferred method for disabling the Windows Firewall is via Local Security Policy or via Group Policy in a domain environment. Simply stopping the Windows Firewall service can have adverse effects with some software applications.
When disabling the Windows Firewall in Local Policy I change the Firewall state to Off for all profiles (Domain, Private, and Public).
You should however only disable/stop the Firewall only if needed and in protected network environments. For any production servers I strongly recommend configuring the needed ports per best practices. Details about Best Practices can be found at: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb736286%28v=vs.85%29.aspx