Windows Firewall/ICS won't start

When I try to start the Windows Firewall, I get an error message that says "Could not start the Windows Firewall/Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) service on Local Computer. Error 2: The system cannot find the file specified."

I found an earlier thread that disusses this issue, and the suggested solution of running "sfc /scannow" would help fix the issue by restoring any missing system files.

However, I can't seem to do that - my copy of Windows Home XP only has SP1, and the missing files (at least, some of them) are from the downloaded SP2 installation (for which I do not have a CD that the SFC utility wants to access).

Is there a way around this? Is there another utility that identifies any missing system files and can find a different way to restore them?

Thanks!
Eric

Hello Peach. As far as i know Windows XP's firewall is yet not so effective as it was supposed to be. Hence the better i can suggest you is try installing a free program such as Sygate's Personal Firewall, Agnitum's Outpost or Zonelab's Zonealarm. There are also some paid third party firewall programs which can be more effective and useful for Windows XP. Google for the same.

"Error 2" when starting the Windows Firewall service:
http://www.winhelponline.com/article...l-service.html

There are few more articles which i will suggest you to go through for more helps on this problem. They are as follows:
http://www.spychecker.com/program/winsockxpfix.html
http://www.techspot.com/community/to...nternet.16323/