Trouble Installing Cisco AnyConnect - Trouble with Windows Installer Package

I was having trouble installing the Cisco AnyConnect client on a Windows 7 laptop. Each time I tried the installation I got the following error:

Error 1722. There is a problem with this Windows Installer package.

A program run as part of the setup did not finish as expected. Contact your support personnel or package vendor.  Action kdf_acsock64_Install, location: C:\Program Files (x86)\Cisco\Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client\VACon64.exe, command: kdf -install "C:\Program Files (x86)\Cisco\Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client\\" acsock

We tried:
- Scanning for viruses.
- Running ifcleanup to check for too many network interfaces.
- Running the MSI as Administrator explicitly.
- Installing from the ASA via Internet Explorer.
- Checking to see if McAfee HIPs was blocking something.

No dice.

Finally I found this:

http://list.uvm.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A3=ind1201&L=IT-DISCUSS&E=8bit&P=541550&B=--&T=text%2Fplain;%20charset=UTF-8

The link above boils down to the following steps:

1. Launch Services (Start, Run, Services.msc)
2. Enable and start the Base Filtering Engine service.
3. Enable and start the Microsoft Firewall service.

Once I did that I was able to install AnyConnect. I was then able to turn off both those services and AnyConnect still seems to work fine.