I cannot activate Windows firewall

[Guest]

Dear Everybody,

For some reason I cannot activate Windows firewall. I have installed SP2 for
XP and I go to the Security center icon in the control panel and I notice
that the Firewall section is turned to 'OFF'. I then click on the
'recommendations' exactly under and a pop-up come out asking me to 'enable'
Windows firewall. Doing this results in another pop-up saying:

'We're sorry. The security center could not turn on Windows Firewall. To try
turning on the firewall yourself, go to Windows Firewall in the Control
Panel. In the Windows Firewall dialog General tab, select on (recommended),
and then click OK.'

I then do exactly that and discover that all possible selections are turned
off (colour grey). This way I cannot activate the firewall.

If there is anybody that experienced such a problem, please help me with
resolving it. Thanks in advance!

andreas

 

[Malke]

Dear Everybody,

For some reason I cannot activate Windows firewall. I have installed
SP2 for XP and I go to the Security center icon in the control panel
and I notice that the Firewall section is turned to 'OFF'. I then
click on the 'recommendations' exactly under and a pop-up come out
asking me to 'enable' Windows firewall. Doing this results in another
pop-up saying:

'We're sorry. The security center could not turn on Windows Firewall.
To try turning on the firewall yourself, go to Windows Firewall in the
Control Panel. In the Windows Firewall dialog General tab, select on
(recommended), and then click OK.'

I then do exactly that and discover that all possible selections are
turned off (colour grey). This way I cannot activate the firewall.

Do you have an antivirus with a firewall component or a third-party
security suite installed? Examples are Norton and McAfee. If this is
the case, those third-party products have disabled the Windows Firewall
in favor of their own. This is fine.

If you don't have anything installed like that, was the computer
completely virus/malware-free when you installed SP2? Be sure the
machine is clean:
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Removing_Malware

Aside from that, here are some links to help you troubleshoot the WF:

FIREWALL DEAD, or other network issues -
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/892350

Troubleshooting Windows Firewall in XPSP2 - http://tinyurl.com/3tnkt

Windows cannot display Windows Firewall settings error (Ramesh) -
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/sharedaccess.htm

Reset the Windows Firewall Policy settings to defaults -
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/resetfwpol.htm

Malke