We have a Vista Ultimate installation with all service packs installed.
Both the local security policy and the domain policy after joining a domain
have the reserved accounts NETWORK SERVICE and LOCAL SERVICE configured to
start as a service. If we disconnect the notebook from the domain and
restart it, the Windows Firewall service refuses to start. All attempts to
manage the firewall fail because the service reports it has not started.
If you manually attempt to start the firewall service it fails.

As soon as we put the notebook back on the domain network and reboot it
works.

Does anyone have any insight on why this happens and how we can get the
firewall to start? Any sequence that effectively prevents the firewall
from starting strikes me as a pretty serious misfeature. The notebook is
often used to configure devices by cross connecting straight to the device,
so we cannot count on being on the domain network, but clearly we want a
working firewall at all times.

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W