I have McAfee Personal Firewall Plus for MSN (Version 16.0.5; Personal Firewall Version is 17.5).
After I start my computer, I open my McAfee interface and check (manually) for updates. The green stripe is there, "Your Computer Is Secure" and it says that the Firewall is ON.
However, when I was looking under Services (for something else), I noticed that the Firewall says "Manual" and with no indication that it was running. I opened the Task Manager and checked under Services there; it said "Stopped" for the firewall. I can start it manually; but when I click on "Properties", the drop-down menu to change the startup type is "greyed" out, so I don't know how else to change it to "automatic".
When the McAfee interface says that the firewall is ON and the computer is secure (and I have "Don't show an alert when Firewall is off" UNchecked), but the Services (under Task Manager) says that the firewall is "Stopped".....well, is the Firewall on and working, or isn't it?? I have only just noticed this, so don't know how long it's been going on.
This is my personal home computer; I'm not on a network and have no other computer. So, if it's an "Administrator" thing, that's me.
I'd appreciate any information, and I don't mind if you "dumb it down" -- in fact, that's appreciated, too, as I'm no tech whiz.