Windows Firewall and BFE cannot be started, access denied

Hello,

Following a recent Windows Update, Windows Firewall on my Windows 8 system was disabled. Upon attempting to start the firewall through the services.msc dialog, I receive an error code 1068, informing that the dependency service or group failed to start. After doing some googling to attempt to resolve the issue I found the dependency service, the Base Filtering Engine (BFE) was not active. When attempting to start the BFE service, I am stopped with an error 5, indicating that access is denied.

I am unable to figure out why access to the BFE service should be denied, since this account is the only account on the computer and has administrator privileges. Because of these issues with the firewall, I am unable to access the internet and am creating this thread through a separate laptop computer.

In a potentially related issue, Windows is not "activated", though I had activated it approximately a year earlier. Because of this, I am unable to access my Microsoft Office programs. I believe that I am unable to activate windows due to a lack of internet connectivity caused by the above firewall issue.

Any help would be appreciated. My next step is to take the computer into a nearby service depot and pay the requisite charges. Thank you.

hello and welcome to eightforums ,don't know if I have the correct answer,i think you might have picked of a some virus or malware and not a problem with windows updates , [if I turn my firewall off I can still get on the internet ],and the activation should not have changed ,so I think you have a bigger issue . good luck
first try calling Microsoft and doing the activation ,to find the number in your country ,type of past this into a command prompt or Run . slui.exe 4