Windows Vista/7 firewall service won’t start

Problem

When you attempt to start the Windows Vista/7 Firewall service (MpsSvc) you receive the following error:

Windows Vista/7 firewall service won’t start

Windows could not start the Windows Firewall on Local Computer. For more information, review the system event log. If this is a non-Microsoft service, contact the service vendor, and refer to service-specific error code 5.

If you look in the System Event Log, you will see event 7024 from the Service Control Manager:

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

Cause

This may be caused because the “NT Service\MpsSvc” account does not have adequate permissions (it could happen after a trojan/worm attack to the system, so check with a good antivirus, after this modification) on the following registry key:

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\SharedAccess

Solution

In Registry Editor, browse to the key:

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\SharedAccess

Right click SharedAccess, and click Permissions. Click Add.

In the “Enter the object names to select” field, type “NT SERVICE\mpssvc”. Then click Check Names. The name should change to MpsSvc. Click OK.

Select Full Control in the Allow column. Click OK.