xp home edition sp2 firewall

[Marea]

my firewall had been working perfectly until a couple of
weeks ago. Now I cannot enable firewall. Get message now
"windows firewall settings cannot be displayed because
the associated service is not running. Do you want to
start windows firewall/internet connection sharing
service?" ICS is on automatic but wont start either.
I'm a homeuser with no local network adapter.

Your my last hope have tried everywhere to solve problem,
including MS knowledge base.

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

See if this helps:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/892350