SOLVED: XP Firewall and "Due to an unidentified problem, Windows cannot display Windows firewall settings" Problem

Hello All,

I work as a Network Manager for a Fortune 500 company and a bunch of my
XP clients got the following message:

"Due to an unidentified problem, Windows cannot display Windows
firewall settings"

Some of the symptoms associated with it:

* Cannot open firewall settings
* Cannot get inbound traffic to work (Outbound worked)
* Cannot run an IPCONFIG on the system with the problem
* Cannot look at TASK MANAGER -> NETWORK tab

Things Noted:

If you change the system date 3 months back and reboot, the firewall
settings worked!

Solution:

We use APC UPS systems on these XP workstations. If you have the APC
service loaded on your system, there is a flaw in which the JRE
certificate embedded on it expires on 7/27/2005 (see their support site
for the article). If I disabled the APC service and reboot, "whooptie
doo" the firewall settings come back and the systems continure to work.

APC recommends updating the software version of their product to the
latest and greatest (7.04 I think) but they do not acknowledge this
issue.

I hope this solution helps you guys as it helped me.

Sincerely,

KEY-K

Key-K,
Nice post-back on an obscure problem! I use APC products, but have
never loaded thier software. Hope to think APC sent you this update
problem/notice along with their e-mail sales pitches.
Probably not.
Best,
Treeman

I have to Thank you, Thank you, and Thank you again!

I have been pulling my hair out the last 5 days, including uninstalling
Service Pack 2, scanning for Viruses, Browser Hijacks, plugged in cloned
drive which acted the same (really through me for a loop). Below is a list
of issues experienced by this problem:

1) Cannot View Network Connections
2) Cannot Run XP System Restore
3) Cannot Browse the Internet (unless in Safe Mode)
4) Cannot view properties in "My Computer"
5) Tried a Clean Boot (apparently APC drivers were not unloaded)
6) Could not run Firewall

I cannot thank you enough!

-Bob

PS: how did you encrypt your email address in Google Groups?