The second jpg says that group policy settings are locking you out. Home
edition doesn't actually allow you to have group policy so its unusal to see
this setting applied unless some other application is playing games with
your registry.
run regedit.exe and delete the regkeys under:
hkey_local_machine\software\policies\microsoft\win dowfirewall


--
David
Microsoft Windows Networking
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.


"david" wrote in message
...
Before my old harddrive died I ran microsoft sp2 with windows firewall
without any problems. But now I can't use windows firewall with sp2.

After installing a new hard drive I upgraded my xp home edition which ran
on
sp1 to sp2 like I did before. I had windows firewall for sp1 but for some
reason it's deactivated for sp2.

see pictures he
http://img318.imageshack.us/img318/5900/firewall4qf.jpg
I canot turn it on. I follow directions and it comes to this.

http://img318.imageshack.us/img318/597/25ag1.jpg
as you can see the choices are DEACTIVATED.
so i tried using "default settings" and i get the same problem. no
firewall.

and finally...
http://img71.imageshack.us/img71/8569/lastly5gh.jpg
this shows that i'm running aruond without firewall.

I'm using kaspersky antivirus se professional if that helps. It doesn't
have it's own firewall. I even had windows firewall with sp1 while
kaspersky
was on I am the admin of my own computer and no other users aer using it.

so in conclusion how can i activate windows firewall? should i deinstall
sp2? Thank you