Cannot Update Firewall Settings or Start Win 10 Firewall

[paulearley]

I am a new purchaser of Tweaking.com app. My windows firewall (Win 10) suddenly stopped running. The message is Windows Firewall is not using the recommended settings" with a button to "Use recommended settings." When I click the button, nothing happens. When I try to start Windows firewall, I come to this dialog box again. I ran the firewall repair in your tool, it did not fix the problem. I followed the problems in this thread: topic,1857.0.html but did not seem to have the same problems.

The error from Windows - System logs is: The Windows Firewall service terminated with the following service-specific error:
The data is invalid.

Any suggestions as to how to fix this?
Paul Earley

Here is the XML of the error, which is remarkably unhelpful:
- <Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
- <System>
  <Provider Name="Service Control Manager" Guid="{555908d1-a6d7-4695-8e1e-26931d2012f4}" EventSourceName="Service Control Manager" />
  <EventID Qualifiers="49152">7024</EventID>
  <Version>0</Version>
  <Level>2</Level>
  <Task>0</Task>
  <Opcode>0</Opcode>
  <Keywords>0x8080000000000000</Keywords>
  <TimeCreated SystemTime="2017-09-04T16:19:27.718032600Z" />
  <EventRecordID>161027</EventRecordID>
  <Correlation />
  <Execution ProcessID="784" ThreadID="868" />
  <Channel>System</Channel>
  <Computer>PaulDev3</Computer>
  <Security />
  </System>
- <EventData>
  <Data Name="param1">Windows Firewall</Data>
  <Data Name="param2">%%13</Data>
  <Binary>4D00700073005300760063000000</Binary>
  </EventData>
  </Event>

[Boggin]

I assume you are using Windows Defender as your antivirus program ?

If you don't have a 3rd party antimalware scanner installed such as the free version of MBAM, then boot up into Safe Mode with Networking and download/run it.

https://www.malwarebytes.com/mwb-download/

Infections can take out Windows Firewall so you will need to determine that your system is infection free.

If it finds anything, reboot and then run the Windows Repair program again in Safe Mode with Networking, as it cannot repair items damaged by malware while the infection is still present.

If that doesn't find anything, do you have any restore points that will take your system back to before this error occurred ?

[paulearley]

I am using Windows Defender as my primary Virus Protection, but run the free version of Malwarebytes monthly. The most I have ever had were some PUPs. At your advice, I restarted in Safe Mode and ran it again -- found nothing.

I ran the full Tweaking utility and it seemed to remove restore points so I have none to fall back on.

The error seemed to have arrived after a Windows Update, but I am not sure.

Thanks for the troubleshooting directions -- next steps?

Paul Earley

[Boggin]

I have a series steps that will do it for Win 7 but don't know if they will apply to Win 10.

I'm not sure why WR would have removed your restore points.

Open the program in Safe Mode with Networking and click on Backup Tools.

Click on Restore under Registry backup then click on Restore Registry then use the dropdown to select the first back up to before you first ran WR and then see if your restore points have been reinstated, but Win 10 has a habit of turning System protection off.

To see if it's enabled, open Windows Explorer - right click on This PC and select Properties then click on System protection to see if it is turned on.

Win 10 is updating all sorts of things and they don't always appear in Update History - just reliability history, but to see if it's listed in Update history, go Start - click on the Settings cog and then on Update and Security - Windows Update and then on Update history.

If a recent one is listed, click on Uninstall Updates then put its KB number into the top right search box and when it comes up, right click on it and select Uninstall.

I'm not sure if a repair install would fix this as it depends upon what took it out.

Does Event Viewer give an Event ID number for it ?

[paulearley]

Sorry about the delay in responding. First I need to correct a slightly negative comment and make apology. The comment "I ran the full Tweaking utility and it seemed to remove restore points so I have none to fall back on" was inaccurate. I DID lose all my restore points but looking back this was due to some other supposed repair tool that did nothing but DID remove all of my Update history AND my restore history. Ugh!

I am unable therefore to do any type of restore, but I do have System Protection ON (history deleted as noted above!)

So I am stuck. In the meantime, I have downloaded and installed ZoneAlarm firewall in the meantime. I would really prefer to go back to Windows firewall if I can.

Any further suggestions as to how to get the windows firewall working?

To reiterate, my initial problem is I cannot start Windows Firewall. When I do to the Firewall settings in Control Panel I get the message: "Windows Firewall is not using the recommended settings" with a button to "Use recommended settings." When I click the button, nothing happens. When I try to start Windows firewall, I come to this dialog box again.

[Boggin]

The steps that I mentioned earlier which as far as I knew only applied to Win 7, I've asked for advice on this and initially they could also work on Win 10.

It was an Admin I asked about this, but he said he would seek clarification from Shane.

The steps I have are as laid out in the second post of https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/5366225a-46e7-4d6c-a389-8bd18a5c3aad/windows-firewall-damaged-by-windows-7-antivirus-2012?forum=w7itprosecurity

It would take me longer to replicate them from my notes as I would have to go to the sites those hyperlinks give and then copy & paste them into my reply.

If you want to give them a try, disregard the ESET link as that has now been withdrawn but create a restore point first and check to see that it exists.

As a belt 'n braces, you could also create a system image onto ext. media.

If I had your problem then I would be prepared to do the safeguard steps and give them a try.

[paulearley]

YES! The second message in that thread worked.
The biggest lesson is to not trust or use random "Windows Cleaning Utilities" some delete important safety backups!

Thanks so much for the help.
Paul Earley

[Boggin]

That's great news that it worked on Win 10 and for you.

The thing is that these so called tune up programs remove items blindly from the registry.

When I first started I saw an advert for Uniblue Power Suite and bought that as it promised all things good - as they do.

Fortunately I had the foresight to create a system image before running it and just as well - it took out important system files which produced error pop up messages.