Windows Defender Firewall broken

This happens usually every 5 to 6 months on my PC. Reasons unknown.


None of these links work. At best they lead to an error box.

All commands are grayed out.

Again, everything grayed out.

Even the snap-in won't load.

In the past I've had no recourse but to Macrium Reflect everything (at least the system drive) a day earlier. It's a workable solution for me if I've done nothing more than just creating new files on my data drive. When it involves my system drive it can be a mess, usually with me doing all those earlier tasks all over again.

I'd appreciate the sharp minds here to give me advice on all steps to avoid Total Recall. Thanks in advance.

Hi dalchina.
I've used Tweaking.com before years ago, never fully trusted it. Kinda tweaked it a tad too far and fried a few things I didn't intend to.

...As far as 3rd party security (no...not for decades)
/ Group Policy hacks/ and or less common security software...
no. I wouldn't even know how to approach that kind of stuff.

...checked your disk? (SMART- e.g. Hard Disk Sentinel
I just downloaded the standard trial version. Very interesting and impressive, but again I have no idea what I'd be looking for in such a program. So many facets to it.
The data / backup disks I have are 100% health and my SSD is at 80% health.

Any ideas what I should look for?

I haven't done (or relied on) a System Restore in ages, especially since I bought Macrium a few years ago. And System Restores don't create daily restores, only maybe when they feel it's an important recent install.

....an in-place upgrade repair install (which keeps all progs and data...
I've never had the pleasure of learning about all that's involved with that. (Remember, I'm nowhere near the tech intellect of this community. )

As far as malware and such, that's one thing I'm sure my PC is squeaky clean. The few times I've used Malwarebytes hasn't brought up anything in about a decade. Not even PUPs etc.

That Problem Code that does come up when I bring up the Control Panel Windows Firewall, I looked that up and it seems to point to problems centering around Windows Updates. (Surprise surprise. )

I ran an SFC /SCANNOW , dism /online /cleanup-image /scanhealth, dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealthyesterday and another SFC /SCANNOW-----and it came up clean. How the heck can SFC NOT pick up a serious flaw like that? Is Win Defender Firewall that far removed from the OS itself?

Windows Firewall Error 0x6D9

1) Control panel > System and Security > Windows Firewall > Restore default. 2) If this does not help, then download from MS WindowsFirewall.diagcab file and double click on it after to get the firewall back to work.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/automatically-diagnose-and-fix-problems-with-windows-firewall-513e9cf8-19ae-d579-2092-d5e64fe06f5f

More about error 0x6D9 there:

How to Fix the 0x6d9 Error in Windows Defender Firewall

Dalchina, ......iso's, mounting, these are areas of unfamiliarity to me. I'm going to use my Macrium backup and push forward from there. Maybe a bit tough but ya never know. I'll get thru it somehow. But I do thank you and Mike for your advice and suggestions. I'll mark thread as solved and give it the old college try.