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

recently installed Windows 7 64-bit on my laptop after I got a new SSD drive. At some point, my firewall stopped working and won’t start.

• Windows Firewall set to Automatic startup
• I do not have another firewall installed
• I’m using Symantec Antivirus 10.2.0.298
• I’ve looked on the internet and haven’t been successful and finding issue.

thanks in advance for any help.

When you attempt to start the Windows 7 firewall service you receive the following error

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..

This may be caused because the “NT Service\MpsSvc” account does not have adequate permissions on the following registry key

Windows 7 (all versions) / Windows Vista (all versions)

Windows firewall service access denied

I had the same problem: Windows Firewall would not start.

If I clicked a button to start the firewall in dialog, it would just fail. If I tried from the command line, with net start mpssvc, it would give me Error 5.

To fix it, I followed the steps here — http://support.microsoft.com/kb/943996 . Mostly. I had to resort to some extra steps, which I will describe below.

First — The article says it applies to Windows Vista, but I have Windows 7 and it applied to Windows7 as well, at least in my case.

I found several problems with the article, described here:

• The article includes a link to a «Fix it» program which is intended to provide an automated way to apply the required fixup. It sounds like a good idea but it did not work for me. The fixit ran, but after 45 seconds it said «The problem is still present» or something like that. It was ineffective. This is a shame because the diagnosis of the problem in the article is EXACTLY RIGHT.
• I then went through the steps described for manually editing the security permissions on the registry keys associated to HKLM\CurrentControlSet\Services\SharedAccess as described in the article. The article provides enumerated steps to do this. The list of steps is missing one critical step, between step 2 and 3, which is , click Add. .
• The article says I need to modify the ACL for the Epoch key, and the ACL on 2 different Parameters keys. I did this, adding permissions for the MpsSvc user to the ACLs on these keys, remembering to perform the missing step I just described. Then I tried restarting the service with net start mpssvc. It failed once again with the same error — ENOACCESS, 0x5, Access is denied. I then examined a working Windows7 computer and checked the ACL for these keys. On the working computer the Epoch2 key also had access for the MpsSvc User. I modified that ACL as well, and then tried restarting — it worked.

The original scenario was a Windows 7 computer running McAfee Security Center, or whatever its called. I didn’t want that, because McAfee seemed to be interfering with multiple other programs that needed to download and install updates — Java, Flash, Zune. So my idea was to scrap McAfee and replace it with the free Microsoft Security Essentials. I stopped and uninstalled McAfee, and here I had to resort to a special Mcafee-provided tool to uninstall. (That McAfee requires a special install tool ought to be a crime).

After uninstalling McAfee and installing MSE, the Windows Firewall could not or would not start. I found that the registry keys in HKLM\CurrentcontrolSet\Services\MpsSvc were completely missing. Nice one, McAfee! So in order to fix THAT, I had to export the appropriate regkey tree from a working Windows7 computer, and then import it on the ailing computer.

I don’t actually know if that step was necessary, because when I tried net start mpssvc after importing the reg keys, the firewall still did not start. But it seemed that adding the missing regy keys was at least benign. It could be that the firewall once started would have created those keys anyway. I don’t know. In any case, try doing the copy/graft I described here if you still have the problem.

Good luck to everyone, and Happy Thanksgiving. This problem REALLY, REALLY should not be so complicated.

Windows Firewall service terminated with Access is denied Error message

I got Windows 8 Pro when I was in UK and one day it got affected by PCEU virus and some how we managed to clear it. But after this windows firewall is not getting started. Whenever I start the service manually, I got below error. As windows firewall is not not started, iam not able to install any of apps updates. Any help would be of great help.

The Windows Firewall service terminated with the following service-specific error:

Access is denied.

Replies (4) 

1. Did you make any changes to the computer prior to the issue?
2. Do you have any third party firewall programs installed on the computer?

Access denied error message occurs when you don’t have administrator privileges.

Method 1:

I would suggest you to log-in as an administrator and then try to turn on the firewall.

You can turn on the application from the command prompt. Follow the steps mentioned below.

To turn Windows Firewall on or off

• Type the following at the command prompt, and press ENTER:

netsh firewall set opmode mode = mode

Note: Instead of mode, type enable or disable.

Method 2: I would suggest you to run online virus scan using Microsoft safety scanner to check if the computer is affected with virus.

Note: When you perform online virus scan you will lose some data that is affected by virus. Microsoft is not responsible for such data loss.

Keep us updated on the status of the issue.

Windows Firewall Inbound Rule — Access Denied

I’m trying to create a rule to allow access for a new program I have installed and getting the error message below.

An error occurred while adding the rule.
Error: Access is denied
Status: The rule was parsed successfully from the store

I am running as Administrator and have tried to create as a Program Rule and also a Port rule just for the specific ports. The error message pops up with both.

Replies (4) 

Thank you for posting the question on Microsoft forums.

1. Do you have any third party security software installed on the computer?

2. Are you able to use other programs on the computer?

As per the description, you are unable to create inbound/outbound rule in Windows Firewall and getting an error «Access denied«.

This issue normally occurs when the firewall services are not working properly. Any of the dependency service could be causing the issue.

Let’s perform few steps and try to resolve the issue.

I would suggest you to perform the steps mentioned in the article:

Some services do not start in Windows Vista and Windows 7

Important: This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, click the windows help article below.

Hope this information helps. Please reply with the status so that we could help you further.

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This worked for me:

I gave my user account the permissions described in the following instructions.

here are the steps for the Windows Firewall service:

Access denied when trying to start Windows Firewall Service on Win 7 Home Prem.

1) Since when are you facing this issue?

2) Are you running the computer as an administrator?

3) Are you referring to the fixit available in the article below?

Some services do not start in Windows Vista

Important This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

How to back up and restore the registry in Windows
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/322756/

Method 1: If you are running any other security software\Firewall program disable it temporarily and then check

Disable-antivirus-software

Important: Enable the security software back once everything is done.

Method 2: Stop and restart the Windows Firewall service

a) Click Start, click in the Start Search box, type services.msc, and then press ENTER.

b) Double click on “Windows Firewall” > Stop and restart the service

To specify the user account that the service can use to log on, click the Log On tab, and then do one of the following:

c) Specify your user account to use the service, click This account, click Browse, and then specify your user account in the Select User dialog box. When you are finished, click OK.

d) Type the password for the user account in Password and in Confirm password, and then click OK.