While trouble shooting a problem today on my small home wireless network I discovered that my primary computer, a desktop running Win XP service pack 2 does not have a properly working Windows Firewall. When I go to the Security center and click on the Windows Firewall I get the following : "Windows Firewall setting cannot be displayed because the associated service is not running. Do you want to start Windows Firewall/Internet connection (ICS) sharing service?" I select Yes then the next message appears: "Windows cannot start the Windows Firewall/Internet connection sharing service (ICS). I have done some searching and have seen similar posts where people go the the Services screen and make sure the the Firewall/Internet (ICS) service in turned on. I don't have such a service in my listing!? I'm not sure if this is a virius or spyware attack, or if it's just something that has happened. I've done full Virus and spyware scans with 3 different programs and nothing unusual is reported. I recently downloaded IE7 and other strange things started to happen shortly after that. Any help with getting my Windows Firewall to start up,( it also might help my original problem) would be appreciated.
Howdy, I notice you mentioned you had just installed Explorer 7, was this a beta or the final release? Explorer 7 is reletavily new out and I know there are a few people that do have issues with it. If you have the beta I would upgrade to the full version for certain.
There is an option to reset the windows firewall. Go to start menu - select run - type in the following NETSH FIREWALL RESET
I must mention that my own self opinion would be to use a third party firewall and not the default windows firewall. This is simply because of security. Windows firewall will only prevent incomming processes and not outgoing, this means that trojans and other nasties can "phone home"
A couple of decent free firewalls are Comodo firewall / zonealarm free and also, no longer under development, but still respected - you could try sygate firewall
If you are having trouble with spyware or feel something is not right or as it should be then im sure that the experts here would check a HJT log out for you
Thanks for the reply Hammer,
Yes I have updated to the final IE7 version and it seems to be working without any issues. I also have my FireWall working again. After alot of research and comparing my system files to my other computer I discovered that my "system32\wbem" folder was empty!! I'm not sure if this was an attack or just somehow the files got corrupted but without files in that folder the FireWall will not work, nor will the computer be visiable on a local network, which was my original problem. This folder has to do with both the ICS and the
WMI functions in Window, thanks to a very detailed post I found at another site I was able to restore the missing files. After a reboot my FireWall Icon started to work and my computer appeared on my network. It was a bit of work, but in the end I learned quite a bit.
