Symptom

When you open the Windows Firewall applet (firewall.cpl) and click the Advanced tab, the following error message may appear:

The network connection settings have become corrupted. To fix this, click Restore Defaults. This will delete all of your settings for Windows Firewall, and it might cause some programs to stop working.

Resolution

• Click Start, Run. Type services.msc and press {ENTER}
• Double-click Windows Management Instrumentation
• Set the Startup type to Automatic
• Click Start to start the service.

Then run these commands from Start, Run dialog:

winmgmt /regserver
regsvr32 "%Windir%\system32\netshell.dll"
regsvr32 "%Windir%\System32\hnetcfg.dll"
regsvr32 "%Windir%\system32\wbem\wbemprox.dll"
regsvr32 "%Windir%\system32\wbem\wbemsvc.dll"
regsvr32 "%Windir%\system32\wbem\wbemcore.dll"
regsvr32 "%Windir%\system32\wbem\fastprox.dll"