Can't enable MS Firewall

[Maestro Mysterieux]

XP Home Edition

When I first installed XP, I turned off Microsoft's firewall, and
installed "Tiny Personal Firewall", which can't do the things I now
want to do. So I removed it and tried to get Microsoft's firewall
working, but it won't enable.

When I select "Windows Firewall" from the control panel, I immediately
get the message "Due to an unidentified problem, Windows cannot
display Windows Firewall settings".

When I select "Security Center" after a reboot, it says that the
firewall is ON. But after a few seconds, there is a "beep" and it
changes to OFF.

One possibility is that the old firewall isn't completely removed.
There might be some sort of 'driver' or something hanging around,
preventing other firewalls from working. But I don't know what to do
about that.

I'm looking for some help on this problem. I have a router and
anti-virus sw (Avast!) so I'm not defenseless, but there is something
definitely wrong that I would like to fix.

Alan

 

[Curt Christianson]

Hi Alan,

A similar problem was discussed in the following thread, and suggest you try
the fixes listed, in the order they're listed. Post back with your results:

http://groups.google.com/group/micr...ewall+settings"&rnum=1&hl=en#141a9ea23e98a3bf

and

"Windows cannot display Windows Firewall settings" error while accessing
Firewall settings in Windows XP Service Pack 2:
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/sharedaccess.htm



--
HTH,
Curt

Windows Support Center
www.aumha.org
Practically Nerded,...
http://dundats.mvps.org/Index.htm

<Maestro Mysterieux> wrote in message
| XP Home Edition
|
| When I first installed XP, I turned off Microsoft's firewall, and
| installed "Tiny Personal Firewall", which can't do the things I now
| want to do. So I removed it and tried to get Microsoft's firewall
| working, but it won't enable.
|
| When I select "Windows Firewall" from the control panel, I immediately
| get the message "Due to an unidentified problem, Windows cannot
| display Windows Firewall settings".
|
| When I select "Security Center" after a reboot, it says that the
| firewall is ON. But after a few seconds, there is a "beep" and it
| changes to OFF.
|
| One possibility is that the old firewall isn't completely removed.
| There might be some sort of 'driver' or something hanging around,
| preventing other firewalls from working. But I don't know what to do
| about that.
|
| I'm looking for some help on this problem. I have a router and
| anti-virus sw (Avast!) so I'm not defenseless, but there is something
| definitely wrong that I would like to fix.
|
| Alan
|

 

[Maestro Mysterieux]

Ok, I want to try your suggestions.
But before I make changes to the registry, I want to back it up, and
that is where I need some questions answered.

1- I just created a system restore point. Do I now need to backup my
registry, or, should a registry problem occur, can I get the current
registry back by going back to the restore poit?

2- I found that apparently the only way to backup the registry is to
install and use the "backup" program.

I presume that I only need to backup the "system state".
Approximately how big might I expect the file to be?

Can I save the file to the same hard disk that I am backing up? What
medium is normally used?

Does the registry exist only on the C: partition? If not, does that
create any problems that I need to watch out for?

3- The documentation is a little confusing in regards to restoring.
It says that if yoy have the Home Edition you should not use ASR. I
am assuming that the instructions in "How to Use the Backup Utility to
Back Up Files and Folders in Windows XP Home Edition" do not ust ASR.

4- The readme for the backup program states " If you need to restore
from this session, install Windows XP manually and then restore from
the ASR media.". This hints that this is the only way to restore if
you have Home Edition. I hope that this quote applies only if you
backed up using ASR.

The web page "How to use Backup to restore files and folders on your
computer in Windows XP", which applies to both the Pro and Home
editions, gives no indication of whether ASR was used to do the
backup, [one would expect different restore instructions depending] or
whether the author might mistakenly be giving ASR restore instructions
only.

[I hope that I am just being overly cautious here, but, using my
experience with sw documentation, I am pretty well suspicious of all
of it.]
-----

I guess that if I have to then I have to, but it seems that MS should
have a better way to backup and restore the system state for the Home
Edition..

Alan

 

[Rock]

Ok, I want to try your suggestions.
But before I make changes to the registry, I want to back it up, and
that is where I need some questions answered.

1- I just created a system restore point. Do I now need to backup my
registry, or, should a registry problem occur, can I get the current
registry back by going back to the restore poit?

Yes, assuming the computer will boot into either normal mode or safe mode
and assuming running system restore works. Have you tested system restore
lately?

But even if it is working, if windows won't boot you can't get to system
restore.

2- I found that apparently the only way to backup the registry is to
install and use the "backup" program.

Not true. I recommend using ERUNT to backup the registry. When set up
properly with the backup in the right place, if the computer won't boot
because of a problem with the registry, it can be restored from an ERUNT
backup from within the XP recovery console.

See these links for info on ERUNT

ERUNT
http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/
http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/erunt.txt

Installing and Using ERUNT
http://www.silentrunners.org/sr_eruntuse.html
http://www.winxptutor.com/regback.htm

I use ERUNT to backup the registry daily.

You can also backup individual keys from within regedit before editing them.
Go to the key to be changed, and do file | export. To bring that key back
in just double click the exported reg file. Of course for this to work
windows must be bootable.

<snip>

Sorry I can't help with your other questions about ntbackup. It's been
years since I used that. I moved to a drive imaging program, currently
Acronis True Image Home, version 10 and image the system regularly to an
external hard drive. It can do images on a partition or drive basis. After
an initial full image subsequent images can be incremental or differential
saving time and space. Restores can be done on a file, folder, partition or
drive basis, and it also does file backup and disk cloning.

I do a full image weekly with a nightly incremental image. I alternate
between two external drives on a weekly basis so one can be stored off site.

This makes for a cost effective and reliable backup and recovery solution.
A full restore of the system takes on the order of an hour.

Look around for the best price. You can find it for less than what it is on
the Acronis site, $49.99. I have seen it on Newegg.com for as little as
$21.99.

 

[Curt Christianson]

Hi Alan,

I just saw your reply, and I have to admire your thoughtfulness before
embarking on a "trek" through the Registry.

You've posed some questions beyond *my* comfort level (e.g.--"damned if I
know"), and I would prefer to have someone more knowledgeable than I jump in
here to clarify.

Please be patient, this NG is a little quieter here on the weekends, but you
still may get an answer soon.

--
HTH,
Curt

Windows Support Center
www.aumha.org
Practically Nerded,...
http://dundats.mvps.org/Index.htm

<Maestro Mysterieux> wrote in message
| Ok, I want to try your suggestions.
| But before I make changes to the registry, I want to back it up, and
| that is where I need some questions answered.
|
| 1- I just created a system restore point. Do I now need to backup my
| registry, or, should a registry problem occur, can I get the current
| registry back by going back to the restore poit?
|
| 2- I found that apparently the only way to backup the registry is to
| install and use the "backup" program.
|
| I presume that I only need to backup the "system state".
| Approximately how big might I expect the file to be?
|
| Can I save the file to the same hard disk that I am backing up? What
| medium is normally used?
|
| Does the registry exist only on the C: partition? If not, does that
| create any problems that I need to watch out for?
|
| 3- The documentation is a little confusing in regards to restoring.
| It says that if yoy have the Home Edition you should not use ASR. I
| am assuming that the instructions in "How to Use the Backup Utility to
| Back Up Files and Folders in Windows XP Home Edition" do not ust ASR.
|
| 4- The readme for the backup program states " If you need to restore
| from this session, install Windows XP manually and then restore from
| the ASR media.". This hints that this is the only way to restore if
| you have Home Edition. I hope that this quote applies only if you
| backed up using ASR.
|
| The web page "How to use Backup to restore files and folders on your
| computer in Windows XP", which applies to both the Pro and Home
| editions, gives no indication of whether ASR was used to do the
| backup, [one would expect different restore instructions depending] or
| whether the author might mistakenly be giving ASR restore instructions
| only.
|
| [I hope that I am just being overly cautious here, but, using my
| experience with sw documentation, I am pretty well suspicious of all
| of it.]
| -----
|
| I guess that if I have to then I have to, but it seems that MS should
| have a better way to backup and restore the system state for the Home
| Edition..
|
| Alan
|

 

[Maestro Mysterieux]

Well, my system is in worse shape than I thought.

I found a new problem (see below).
So I ran two on-line virus scanners on my entire hard disk
(Bitdefender and Ewido). It took hours! They only found some
infections in zip files of programs I hadn't yet installed, and one
infection in a TMP directory which Ewido claims is of MEDIUM danger.
I deleted all of those files.

After trying to solve the new problem, I finally got around to the
Windows Firewall problem. I followed all the instructions
dilligently. I didn't bother to go through the trouble of backing up
the registry, since I don't think I will be using this copy of my
system in any case.

I registered all the DLLs, as per the instructions, but it made no
difference. So I next tried the "netsh.exe winsock reset" command.
That made no difference either.

So I went to the other web page to try those solutions for "Case 1".
I did the "sharedaccess.reg" solution, but that made no difference
either. (By now I was getting tired of the more than dozen times I
restarted !)

Finally, I tried the "rundll32" solution.
As soon as I pressed the <Enter> key, I got a small dialog box with
the message "Installation Failed"
With that, I no longer got the error msg when I pressed the "Windows
Firewall" control in the Control Panel. Instead I get a dialog box.
titled "Windows Firewall". It's the one where you can either click on
a radio button to turn the firewall ON or OFF. But! ... both options
were greyed out! I wasn't allowed to change anything. And the OFF
radio button was the one selected. I pressed the "Restore Defaults"
button under the "Avanced"tab, but it made no difference. I cannot
get the "General" tab active. The other two tabs ("Advanced" and
"Exceptions") are active - not greyed out.

The final suggestion from the web page is to re-install SP2. But I
don't know how to do that. Can you tell me how?

-----
I have a neat program, "Cool Beans", which graph my network usage.
The new problem I noticed is that evry 15 seconds a tiny packet is
received by my system. I suspected that it is being generated by my
Linksys router. So I powered down my cable modem and router and
system, and restarted them, but it makes no difference. I thought
that maybe my old firewll was preventing the packets, so I
re-installed it, but that makes no difference either. I don't know
how to find out what process is receiving the packets. Can you tell
me how?

Well, 2 or 3 weeks ago I copied my entire system to another hard disk
using Acronis. If I don't want to put up with the new problem I can
use that and do some reinstalls and selective copies. But I will
still have the firewall problem. Do you have some advice?

Alan

 

[Ramesh, MS-MVP]

With that, I no longer got the error msg when I pressed the "Windows Firewall" control in the Control Panel.

It's certainly an improvement!
were greyed out!

This happens if someone (or possibly a Malware) has enabled the Windows Firewall Policy via the registry. See

Windows Firewall options are grayed out:
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/resetfwpol.htm

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows Shell/User]
Windows® Troubleshooting http://www.winhelponline.com


<Maestro Mysterieux> wrote in message Well, my system is in worse shape than I thought.

I found a new problem (see below).
So I ran two on-line virus scanners on my entire hard disk
(Bitdefender and Ewido). It took hours! They only found some
infections in zip files of programs I hadn't yet installed, and one
infection in a TMP directory which Ewido claims is of MEDIUM danger.
I deleted all of those files.

After trying to solve the new problem, I finally got around to the
Windows Firewall problem. I followed all the instructions
dilligently. I didn't bother to go through the trouble of backing up
the registry, since I don't think I will be using this copy of my
system in any case.

I registered all the DLLs, as per the instructions, but it made no
difference. So I next tried the "netsh.exe winsock reset" command.
That made no difference either.

So I went to the other web page to try those solutions for "Case 1".
I did the "sharedaccess.reg" solution, but that made no difference
either. (By now I was getting tired of the more than dozen times I
restarted !)

Finally, I tried the "rundll32" solution.
As soon as I pressed the <Enter> key, I got a small dialog box with
the message "Installation Failed"
With that, I no longer got the error msg when I pressed the "Windows
Firewall" control in the Control Panel. Instead I get a dialog box.
titled "Windows Firewall". It's the one where you can either click on
a radio button to turn the firewall ON or OFF. But! ... both options
were greyed out! I wasn't allowed to change anything. And the OFF
radio button was the one selected. I pressed the "Restore Defaults"
button under the "Avanced"tab, but it made no difference. I cannot
get the "General" tab active. The other two tabs ("Advanced" and
"Exceptions") are active - not greyed out.

The final suggestion from the web page is to re-install SP2. But I
don't know how to do that. Can you tell me how?

-----
I have a neat program, "Cool Beans", which graph my network usage.
The new problem I noticed is that evry 15 seconds a tiny packet is
received by my system. I suspected that it is being generated by my
Linksys router. So I powered down my cable modem and router and
system, and restarted them, but it makes no difference. I thought
that maybe my old firewll was preventing the packets, so I
re-installed it, but that makes no difference either. I don't know
how to find out what process is receiving the packets. Can you tell
me how?

Well, 2 or 3 weeks ago I copied my entire system to another hard disk
using Acronis. If I don't want to put up with the new problem I can
use that and do some reinstalls and selective copies. But I will
still have the firewall problem. Do you have some advice?

Alan

 

[Maestro Mysterieux]

Ramesh's suggestion seems to have worked.
The tab in which one opts to turn Windows Firewall ON is now active.

A fuuny thing is, though, that my system restarted with the Windows
Firewall ON, even though my old firewall (Tiny Personal Firewall) is
running as a service. I even got a msg on startup from "Windows
Security Alert". It warned me that "Windows Firewall" is blocking my
program "AddSubtract", which blocks cookies and ads. And it allows me
to unblock it, which I did.

I shut down my old firewall and looked at the processes running.
I don't see a "Windows Firewall" process running at all! I have a
"Windows Security Alert" icon in my system tray. It says that
"Firewall" is ON. I guess the reason that it is there is that
"Automatic Updates" is OFF.
Even after removing the old firewall and restarting, I don't see a
Windows Firewall process.

I noticed another thing in the list of processes,
A new process appeared: "alg.exe", which process explorer claims is an
"Application Layer Gateway Service" (whatever that is).

So, now that Ramesh and Curt have solved my problem, I have two final
questions:
1- How do I control the Windows Firewall? A specific example is that
I need to unblock a port so my Torrent program can run better. Where
are the instructions for controlling and examining things?

2- If Windows Firewall doesn't allow me to control it, then would
someone recommend a (free) firewall? I tried Zone Alarm once and
couldn't quite set it up correctly. I forgot now what the problem
was.

3- I see no Windows Firewall process running. So is it running?

Alan

Thanks, Ramesh and Curt. I could not have done this without your
help.

 

[Curt Christianson]

You're very welcome Alan, but I did very little, and I once again will defer
an answer to your last two queries to one more qualified. I have *zero*
experience with Torrent type apps.

--
HTH,
Curt

Windows Support Center
www.aumha.org
Practically Nerded,...
http://dundats.mvps.org/Index.htm

<Maestro Mysterieux> wrote in message
|
|
| Ramesh's suggestion seems to have worked.
| The tab in which one opts to turn Windows Firewall ON is now active.
|
| A fuuny thing is, though, that my system restarted with the Windows
| Firewall ON, even though my old firewall (Tiny Personal Firewall) is
| running as a service. I even got a msg on startup from "Windows
| Security Alert". It warned me that "Windows Firewall" is blocking my
| program "AddSubtract", which blocks cookies and ads. And it allows me
| to unblock it, which I did.
|
| I shut down my old firewall and looked at the processes running.
| I don't see a "Windows Firewall" process running at all! I have a
| "Windows Security Alert" icon in my system tray. It says that
| "Firewall" is ON. I guess the reason that it is there is that
| "Automatic Updates" is OFF.
| Even after removing the old firewall and restarting, I don't see a
| Windows Firewall process.
|
| I noticed another thing in the list of processes,
| A new process appeared: "alg.exe", which process explorer claims is an
| "Application Layer Gateway Service" (whatever that is).
|
| So, now that Ramesh and Curt have solved my problem, I have two final
| questions:
| 1- How do I control the Windows Firewall? A specific example is that
| I need to unblock a port so my Torrent program can run better. Where
| are the instructions for controlling and examining things?
|
| 2- If Windows Firewall doesn't allow me to control it, then would
| someone recommend a (free) firewall? I tried Zone Alarm once and
| couldn't quite set it up correctly. I forgot now what the problem
| was.
|
| 3- I see no Windows Firewall process running. So is it running?
|
| Alan
|
| Thanks, Ramesh and Curt. I could not have done this without your
| help.
|

 

[Ramesh, MS-MVP]

Alan,

You can check the status of Windows Firewall via the Security Center applet. Click Start, Run and type WSCUI.CPL to launch Windows Security Center.

Regarding question #1, try here:
http://www.google.com/search?q=torrent+"windows+firewall"+port

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows Shell/User]
Windows® Troubleshooting http://www.winhelponline.com


<Maestro Mysterieux> wrote in message

Ramesh's suggestion seems to have worked.
The tab in which one opts to turn Windows Firewall ON is now active.

A fuuny thing is, though, that my system restarted with the Windows
Firewall ON, even though my old firewall (Tiny Personal Firewall) is
running as a service. I even got a msg on startup from "Windows
Security Alert". It warned me that "Windows Firewall" is blocking my
program "AddSubtract", which blocks cookies and ads. And it allows me
to unblock it, which I did.

I shut down my old firewall and looked at the processes running.
I don't see a "Windows Firewall" process running at all! I have a
"Windows Security Alert" icon in my system tray. It says that
"Firewall" is ON. I guess the reason that it is there is that
"Automatic Updates" is OFF.
Even after removing the old firewall and restarting, I don't see a
Windows Firewall process.

I noticed another thing in the list of processes,
A new process appeared: "alg.exe", which process explorer claims is an
"Application Layer Gateway Service" (whatever that is).

So, now that Ramesh and Curt have solved my problem, I have two final
questions:
1- How do I control the Windows Firewall? A specific example is that
I need to unblock a port so my Torrent program can run better. Where
are the instructions for controlling and examining things?

2- If Windows Firewall doesn't allow me to control it, then would
someone recommend a (free) firewall? I tried Zone Alarm once and
couldn't quite set it up correctly. I forgot now what the problem
was.

3- I see no Windows Firewall process running. So is it running?

Alan

Thanks, Ramesh and Curt. I could not have done this without your
help.

 

[cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user)]

Ramesh's suggestion seems to have worked.

Ramesh's suggestions often do that ;-)

The tab in which one opts to turn Windows Firewall ON is now active.

A fuuny thing is, though, that my system restarted with the Windows
Firewall ON, even though my old firewall (Tiny Personal Firewall) is
running as a service.

I've seen that - I think it's up to the 3rd-party firewall to disable
the Windows one, which is (all too) easy for software to do.

I shut down my old firewall and looked at the processes running.
I don't see a "Windows Firewall" process running at all!

I don't think it's easy to see as a separate process - I think the
functionality is built into something like "remote access".

I have a "Windows Security Alert" icon in my system tray.
It says that "Firewall" is ON.

AFAIK, it should read the status of the 3rd-party firewalls that it
knows, so that it doesn't shriek "you have no firewall!" when using
one of these instead of the built-in Windows one.

I guess the reason that it is there is that
"Automatic Updates" is OFF.

No, that's a seperate and unrelated setting. The center alerts on av
(both presence/abscence and "up to date?"), firewall, and automatic
updates that normally cater for OS code only.

You can change whether the alerter will arlert you for any of these
three things, but settings applied to one should not affect the others

I noticed another thing in the list of processes,
A new process appeared: "alg.exe", which process explorer claims is an
"Application Layer Gateway Service" (whatever that is).

Search( "Application Layer Gateway Service" )

http://www.fbmsoftware.com/spyware-net/application/Microsoft_Application_Layer_Gateway_Service/

http://www.neuber.com/taskmanager/process/alg.exe.html

So yes, it's to do with XP's firewall, as well as connection sharing.

So, now that Ramesh and Curt have solved my problem, I have two final
questions:

1- How do I control the Windows Firewall? A specific example is that
I need to unblock a port so my Torrent program can run better. Where
are the instructions for controlling and examining things?

Control Panel, Windows Firewall
....or...
Properties of your network connection, Advanced tab

What you see will look slightly different, depending on the XP Service
Pack level. I don't recommend anything below SP2.

2- If Windows Firewall doesn't allow me to control it,

What level of control do you require?

...recommend a (free) firewall? I tried Zone Alarm once

I've used an old version of Kerio - newer ones may not be as free.
I've also bounced off Zone Alarm, and find Sygate's free Personal
Firewall to be also a bit naggy. Heard good things about Outpost,
haven't tried it. Tiny became Kerio, AFAIK.

3- I see no Windows Firewall process running. So is it running?

Prolly. Malware can destroy the Windows firewall (or rather, make it
hard to recover) via registry settings changes, and it is in these
contexts (after killing the malware) that I resort to 3rd-party
replacements. Hasn't happened for a while; last time I used Kerio.

See also...

http://cquirke.blogspot.com/2006/07/repairing-xps-firewall.html

....it may contain details I've since forgotten

---------- ----- ---- --- -- - - - -

On the 'net, *everyone* can hear you scream

 

[Maestro Mysterieux]

Thanks for the info.