Fix Windows Firewall with Advanced Security Snap-In Error 0x5 in Windows 7

When you open the Windows Firewall with Advanced Security snap-in in Windows 7, the following error may be displayed and the snap-in loads up blank:

There was an error opening the Windows Firewall with Advanced Security snap-in

You do not have the correct permissions to open the Windows Firewall with Advanced Security console. You must be a member of the Administrators group or the Network Operators group to perform this task. For more information, contact your system administrator. Error code: 0x5.

This has to do with the permissions pertaining to the Windows Firewall registry key (SharedAccess), and here is what I did to fix the error:

Click Start, type Regedit.exe and press {ENTER}

Navigate to the following branch:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ CurrentControlSet \ services \ SharedAccess \ Parameters \ FirewallPolicy

Right-click FirewallPolicy, and click Permissions…

Click Add…

Type NT Service\MpsSvc and click OK.

Select MpsSvc, and click the Advanced button

Double-click the MpsSvc permission entry

Assign Query Value, Set Value, Create Subkey and Enumerate Subkeys Permissions by ticking the appropriate checkboxes.

Click OK, then OK, OK in the resulting dialog boxes.

See if you’re able to open Windows Firewall with Advanced Security MMC snap-in now.

Well! I could, after completing the above steps.

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