Win 7 firewall stopped working

Very odd. Ran Tweaking to repair Win 7 firewall yesterday. It ran just that from the git go, and it worked!. I could then get online with the firewall enabled. Was online all day and last night. This morning, when I booted the computer, I was back to square one. Firewall malfunctions, I can't get online. When I disable the firewall, I can get online and things work normally. Obviously not a good idea to be without a firewall.

And yes, I ran chkdsk, File Checker, registry backup. I did NOT run any of the program fixes except Windows Firewall. It goes thru the motions, reboots the computer, but the problem remains. So, yesterday it works, today it doesn''t.

Do you think running all of the fixes recommended by the program would help?
And BTW, I'm running ver 2.1.0. I havn't DLd ver 2.1.1 yet. Any thoughts about why it worked one day and not the next?

Appreciate your help.

BTW, Running Win 7 Home Premium, 4 Gig RAM, 250 gig hard drive. Installed Win7 last April.

 

What happens exactly?

Windows Firewall *does* turn on?

It blocks your internet when it is marked as turned on?

Check for other firewalls (they can conflict eachother)
If you did have 3rd party firewalls, you may want to check for leftover files from them

Did you look at the "Rules and Exceptions" to make sure it is configured correctly?

I would send you my own personal tool I created that repairs all of that but I am not sure of the policy here for that, plus the symptoms you describe would not be affected much by this.

Check BITS (Background Intelligent Transfer Service), BFE (Base Filtering Engine), Security Center and Windows Firewall Services are all running and not malfunctioning.

 

Yeah, Win Firewall does turn on. That has become a problem. I decided to DL another firewall program. (Private Firewall) It's installed and working. However, Win7 firewall continues to turn itself on. When that happens, it blocks access to the Internet. Is there a way to disable the Win7 firewall?

 

The fix doesn't work.
When I press the Stop button, I get an error message:

"Windows could not stop the Windows Firewall service on local computer. Error 1052. The requested control is not valid for this service"

It does allow me to disable the service but it has no effect.

Once again, if I manually disable it via Control Panel, I can get online.

 

I have Tweaking, and have used it with mixed results (see above). I'm wondering if running any of the other fixes included in that program ( I have disabled all of them except Windows Firewall) might find the malware and fix the problem.

 

Here's a link to a MSKB article about error 1052 with a workaround, unfortunately for Vista. I couldn't find the Win7 version of the article but attempted the workaround and succeeded by doing the following:

Click Stat Button >> Programs >> Administrative Tools >> Services >> Double click "Remote Access Connection Manager" >> Change "Startup Type to "Disabled" >> Click "OK" >> Reboot

Now you should be able to turn off the Windows firewall.

 

No go. Still get the same error message. Again, the only way I can get online is to go to Control Panel, click on Windows Firewall, then on "Windows Firewall on or off", then click on off, then OK.

I'm going to try deleting some programs of recent vintage.

A new wrinkle has developed. Firefox and LastPass...when they run at the same time, Firefox hangs up with a "not responding" error and the screen turns almost white. It's taking longer and longer for it to recover. Thus far, it always has. These two programs have been running together for a very long time without a problem.

 

I may have found the problem. A little program called TinyWall, a sort of firewall I guess, attached itself to Firefox. I uninstalled it and now, Windows Firewall is not only disabled but also stopped. I can now get online without the delays.

I still have the Firefox 'not responding' problem but solving the firewall problem is a great mood uplifter. Many thanks for everybody's help.

Wes

 

Just curious, how did you happen to find the problem as being TinyWall? Was it hard-nosed logical protocol, or did you just happen to trip over it?

I did a quick search about your FF/LastPass problem and found a possible fix in another forum: https://forums.lastpass.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=101895

In that forum, someone suggested the following:

A couple of others said it worked for them, too,

 

I suspected TinyWall because every time I tried to stop Win Firewall in Control Panel-Administration, Windows always listed TinyWall as a program that would be affected by turning off Win Firewall. I'm not a big believer in coincidence. This time I nailed it. That doesn't always happen.
Thanks for the followup and tip on Firefox/LastPass. I'll certainly give it a shot.