Windows 10 Firewall Won’t Start

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Hello loungers

I’m running Win 10 Pro on a ThinkPad T510. 8 GB RAM. 512 GB HDD.

Build Info: Build 14393rs1_release161220-1747 which I am assuming is Win 10 Pro AU (but who knows).

I haven’t been using the system much since I’ve been primarily using my work laptop which is still running Win 7. Anyway, on or around Wed Jan 11, 17 I did get on this system and discovered 2 issues that are pretty troublesome.

1-I can’t start the Windows Firewall
2-Cortana does not allow me to type into the Cortana search box on the task bar (but I’ve started a thread with that question so if you have any insight into this Cortana issue, please reply in that thread)

Everything else appears to be working properly.

I received a notice that the Firewall was stopped. I can open the Firewall dialog but it won’t let me start or stop it.

The Windows Firewall Service is marked as Automatic Startup but shows no status (this is, the cell is blank) in the Standard Services tab. When I try to start the service, the startup fails and it directs be to the event viewer. Alas, the management console snap-ins fail to initialize so I can’t look at the log. Let’s try to resolve that after we figure out the firewall thing.

This is clearly very troublesome but since my home network sits behind a Cisco hardware firewall it’s a little less trouble than it could otherwise be. Nevertheless, I’d like to get this resolved.

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[bbearren]

Open an elevated Command Prompt (Run as administrator), type

dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth

and hit Enter. It will take some time for this to run, but let it run until it completes and gives you a status report.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

• This reply was modified 5 years, 7 months ago by bbearren.

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There was nothing in the status report except for the message that said 100% complete.

Any thought on next steps??

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There was nothing in the status report except for the message that said 100% complete.

Any thought on next steps??

From an elevated Command Prompt type

sfc /scannow

And hit Enter. Again, wait for the status report. Then check your firewall.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

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I had something very similar. I run Win 10 (Version 1607 – OS build 14393.693), and have a connection to my home server running WHS2011 via Server Connector. Whenever I restart the Win 10 machine, the Alert Viewer window tells me that the Windows Firewall has failed to start, but, whenever I go to Services to restart the Firewall, it is already running. I put this down as some kind of false positive, and have given up bothering with checking the Services window.

I followed BB’s advice to run dism (etc.) It ran to completion, and reported “The restore operation completed successfully” “The operation completed successfully”.

I have not had time to do a restart and check whether I still get the alert that Windows Firewall failed to start. I’ll post back here when I next do a restart.

Thanks,

Dell E5570 Latitude, Intel Core i5 6440@2.60 GHz, 8.00 GB - Win 10 Pro

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Are you running a 3rd party antivirus program ?

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Sudo15 –

Running Sophos AV since day 1. This problem cropped up about 3 days ago.

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It took about 25 minutes but sfc reported no errors.

Firewall still does not start.

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If Sophos has it’s own firewall then that will auto disable Windows Firewall.

Sophos may be a little slow in starting.

I use Norton Security and occasionally I’ll get a pop up to turn on the security centre until Norton asserts itself after a boot.

Right click on Start – select Control Panel – System and Security/Review your computer’s status/Security – View installed firewall apps

Mine shows Norton On – Windows Firewall Off which is as it should be.

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Well, this just happened again on a different laptop. T430 8GB RAM Windows 10 AU. I was able to get into the event log after trying to restart the firewall and getting error code 5 on the failure.

The Windows Firewall service terminated with the following service-specific error:
Access is denied.

My id is an Administrator.

Any new thoughts anyone!!!

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Which AV program is being used on that one ?

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