Trouble:
Recently one of our reader Sarfaraj Khan emailed us his problem that he is unable to turn on windows firewall. He cannot enable or disable the windows firewall as the options of turning on and off of the firewall were grayed out as shown in the image below (you can click to zoom).
This type of problem occurs when your computer has been infected by some virus which you may have removed from your computer but some infections caused by the virus remains.
Let’s find out how can you resolve this problem of firewall turn on off options disabled
Fix:
The viruses normally create these registry entries which disable and grey out the turn on off controls in windows firewall.
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\WindowsFirewall\DomainProfile]
"EnableFirewall"=dword:00000000
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\WindowsFirewall\StandardProfile]
"EnableFirewall"=dword:00000000
>> If values of the above keys is set to 0, it will disable and it grays out the firewall controls so it cannot be changed.
>> If the value of the above keys is set to 1, it will enable it and grays out the firewall controls so it cannot be changed.
So, in order to fix the problem you would need to delete these registry keys written above and restart you computer to see the effect.
The step by step procedure to enable the disabled options of firewall are as follows
For Windows XP Home Edition and Professional Edition
1. Open Start Menu >> Run, type regedit and press Enter key
2. Navigate To the following path
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Policies \ Microsoft \ WindowsFirewall
3. Make sure to export and backup WindowsFirewall key and close registry
You can also control this through gpedit.msc in Windows XP Professional
1. Open Start Menu >> Run, type gpedit.msc and press Enter key
2. Navigate to the following path
Computer Configuration >> Administrative Templates >> Network >> Network Connections >> Windows Firewall >> Standard Profile
3. Close Group Policy Editor
4. That’s it done, you may need to restart your computer
Tags: firewall-options-greyed-out, firewall-turned-off, windows-firewall, windows-firewall-block-unblock
|
|
Author + Admin: Rohit KhuranaSoftware Engineer by profession. I am a part time tech blogger and believe in blogging because I enjoy writing on technology. I also write about Cars and Bikes at www.carblogindia.com. You can catch me on twitter @rohit_khurana. Get in touch with me at RohitKhurana.in.
New datum , thanks.
hi vinod here. i just wanna to know why dump error(blue screen)
occurs in win xp and how to remove it. please give solution.
Dear Sir,
I have Purchased a compaq laptop with preinstalled windows
Vista, but I want to install windows XP and when I boot my
Laptop using Windows XP Bootable CD it does not detect the Hardisk.
Please Help Me
Santosh
Hello brother I have submit this problem to trouble fixers. I want to give lot more thanks to Rohit Khurana, who solved this problem. I am unable to solved this problem by Group policy Editor(gpedit.msc). I am not cleared how to solved this by gpedit.msc. So, please give more details how to solved this by gpedit.msc. You not clear this method that what should we do after going this step ” Computer Configuration >> Administrative Templates >> Network >> Network Connections >> Windows Firewall >> Standard Profile ”
It means after going Standard Profile what should I do next. You mention that close group policy, but I close group policy after doing this, but not solved my problem. So at last I use ” regedit ” method and I success to solved this problem.
So, please mention more gpedit.msc method.
Thank you.
Date 17.04.2009
If your Firewall is not actyve use this method
1. Open Start Menu >> Run, type regedit and press Enter key
2. Navigate To the following path
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Policies \ Microsoft \ WindowsFirewall
3. Delete all WindowsFirewall catalog
Thats all Restart Your Computer
@Sarfaraj Khan:
“It means after going Standard Profile what should I do next”
Open the item “Windows Firewall: Protect all network connections”, choose the option “Disabled” and click “OK”.
Finally, run GPUPDATE.EXE (if available, otherwise reboot), Windows Firewall ist disabled now…
Regards
Willi
A Big Thanx To aurimasis His Method Works Successfully .
U Have To Do Only This If Ur Windows Firewall Turns Grey And U R Unable To On Or Off
1. Open Start Menu >> Run, type regedit and press Enter key
2. Navigate To the following path
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Policies \ Microsoft \ WindowsFirewall
3. Delete all WindowsFirewall catalog
Thats all Restart Your Computer
And Enjoy
Kudos to Rohit Khurana for the post above solving the issues of a greyed out firewall option. I have have Windows XP Home Edition. I had virus that was very hard to get rid of and in the process turned off my firewall. The process of deleting the string from the regedit fixed my problem in less than 5 minutes.
Thanks again!
Leave Your Comments Below
Hello, please leave your thought below
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Featured Troubles and Fixes
- Not able to open drives on hard disk by double click
- Remove Virus Which Redirects to go.google.com | go.google.com Redirect Virus Removal tool for Windows
- Remove Write Protection On USB Pen Drive or Memory Card or iPod
- Not able to show hidden files and folders
- Drive opens in new window on double click in windows XP
- Solutions to Top 10 USB Pen Drive Problems
- USB pen drive detected but doesn't show up in My Computer
About Trouble Fixers
TroubleFixers are here to fix your computer related troubles. Share your computer troubles and we shall try to fix them.Read the solutions to commonly faced troubles.
8 Users Commented In This Post
Subscribe To This Post Comment Rss Or TrackBack URL