Windows XP Firewall

[jk26045]

Recently, Windows Firewall has been set to "OFF". The buttons are grey and I can not select "ON" in Control Panel. At the top of the Control Panel window is a box that says:

"For your security, some settings are controlled by group policy"

All that I have read about group policy relates to networks. This is a stand alone PC.

I am running Windows XP, with the latest updates.

I have SBC Yahoo DSL, if that matters.

I can not find out how to turn on the firewall or get to "group policy" to change settings.

Any ideas?????

[Andromeda43]

The Windows Firewall is NOT a program as we've come to understand programs.

It's a "Service". All services are listed in a program called:

Services.msc

You can run this program from the RUN box in the Start menu.

Open the window to max and scroll down the list to Windows Firewall.

Make sure it's set to Automatic, and then under properties look in the Dependencies tab for a list of what other services must be running to support the Firewall.

All those services must be set to Automatic as well.

This may not be the complete answer to your question of getting Firewall turned on but it's a place to start.

On my own PC, something was turning my Windows Firewall OFF every now and again.

I took a slightly different tack to this problem. I wrote a little program that turns on the Firewall and I put that program in my Startup Folder, so the Firewall is forced ON every time I boot up. I've not had any more problems with the Firewall being OFF when I go online.

Here's the little batch file, if you want to try it:

@echo off

cls

rem This batch file will Stop selected Services and set them to Disabled.

rem Or, turn them ON

rem The file names for the services are:

rem Firewall = SharedAccess

rem

sc config SharedAccess start= auto

sc start SharedAccess

Just copy the above text into a wordpad or notepad document and save it as:

Firewall.bat

Running this batch file should turn on your Firewall if all the support Services are also running.

Good Luck,

Andromeda43 B)

[Takeshi]

Managing Windows XP Service Pack 2 Features Using Group Policy Windows Firewall Edited August 20, 2006 by Takeshi