Something trying to dial out

[Matt A]

For quite a while now, something has been trying to dial out on my desktop and it ain't me.

-I'll be in the middle of something and the dial up window will appear.

-I return home after a few hours and several dial up windows will be open, waiting to be connected to the internet.

Since I don't have the "connect automatically" box ticked, it waits for me to hit the "connect" button before dialing which I don't do because I don't know which program(s) are trying to dial out. When I DID have "connect automatically" ticked it dialed out by itself and connected, no webpage visible.

I just upgraded to IE7, but this has been happening since before that., it just never dialed out by itself. I need "connect automatically" turned on so my laptop can connect through this desktop. It used to work before IE7. I have auto updates turned off so it isn't that. I cleared the cookies and let it dial out to see just where it wanted to go, nothing.

Any idea on how to find out just what programs are trying to connect all the time? They need to be reprimanded.

[annie]

i am getting this sometimes too, thought it was a bug in XP.

ran AVG, SpyBot, AdAware, nothing.

[Mike Weins]

If you press Ctrl+Alt+Del at the same time (once only) a window will pop up with a list of programs currently running.

One of those is trying to dial out.

[Matt A]

Mike, I know which processes are running on the machine, just..... how do I find out just which one it is that's trying to phone home or just where home might be?

Deleting the cookies/history and letting it dial out didn't work. It didn't pick up any cookies from wherever it connected to. That might have narrowed down the search a little. Nothing in the history folder either.

I need some way to either back-track to it's source to find the program or if nothing else, let it connect and find out where it's trying to go.

On your mark....
Get set....

GO!



:D

[Mike Weins]

Shut down each one 1 by 1 until it doesn't try to dial out again. Just don't shutdown explorer.exe ;)

[The Dude]

IF you do "end task" on explorer.exe you can always re-start it using "New Task" (Explorer.exe is located in c:\windows\explorer.exe)

I've done this before..........

[dorry]

hey matt! unplug the phone line and see what program comes up with an error. It could be an av, fax, email program trying to dial out if not a trojan.

check event viewer.

ie7? lol you are too brave!

[Kathrine]

just a thought but do you have any new hardware or software that might be trying to dial out to send a registration?

Kathrine

[nide44]

Sounds like one of them nebulous updates that MSoft warns you about, & wants you to DL- to prevent 'someone' from taking over your 'puter' and using it as a 'slave' - without your knowledge.
Matt- are you inadvertantly part of a spamming network?
To maybe a million addys? ;)

[Mike Weins]

Hiyas Dorry :)

Now why didn't I think of that? I guess it's been too long since I've had dial up (or anything trying to dial out) that I didn't think about that :o

[annie]

yea dorry!!! now my support system is complete.

i have missed you.

they talked me thru the rest of your suggestions and i am now in excellent shape. until the next thing goes wrong of course.

thanks for all your help in the past. probably should thank you in advance right now, because i know i am going to be crying for you in the future.

[dorry]

hiyah mike! yeah dialup is pretty ancient. I think matt has broadband. Must use his phone line for fax or something.

hiyah annie! just pm me anytime someone here can't help you. We're still in the middle of a kitchen remodel (since sept!) and I just got a 2nd boxer, so I lurk very infrequently. Maybe another month and I'll actually have free time.

xp has to have a way to log the modem. Don't know where it is offhand, but it's gotta be there somewhere. Or, TC can whip up a script to run!

[annie]

thanks dorry, hope your boxer doesn't learn that the kitchen is part of the outdoors.

i am on dial up. XP, IE6

sometimes i get the connection box when i am already connected. lots of times it just takes forever and a half for anything to load. assumed it was just my dial up until matt posted.

[dorry]

what does the connection box say annie? When I had dialup I always set the options to never dial a connection. (tools - internet options - connections tab - I didn't want IE taking over my connection. To connect to the internet, I'd double click the internet connection shortcut on my desktop.

another setting to check on the connections tab is the settings button - advanced button. Untick the bottom 2 radio buttons.

see if that helps.

[annie]

what does the connection box say annie? When I had dialup I always set the options to never dial a connection. (tools - internet options - connections tab - I didn't want IE taking over my connection. To connect to the internet, I'd double click the internet connection shortcut on my desktop.

it has my dialup company in the settings box, marked as default. then the "Always dial my default connection" radio button is checked. there is no LAN. in the Settings nothng is checked, the user name and password are there, no domain.

it does not dial when i turn the computer on. to connect i click on the shortcut icon on the desktop and then press enter (arthritis messes up doubleclick big time) and a large connection box comes up. the volunteer box is smaller.



another setting to check on the connections tab is the settings button - advanced button. Untick the bottom 2 radio buttons.

see if that helps.

think i am in the wrong place, no radio buttons, check boxes.

try to connect [10] times
wait [5] seconds between attempts
[x] disconnect if idle for [20] minutes
[x] disconnect when connection may no longer be needed


today i was waiting and waiting for braintalk to come up and the dialup said that i had sent 90K and received 1 meg. but nothing was happening. hum will time it tomorrow.

[dorry]

annie - untick always dial my default connection since you click the one on the desktop.

and untick the disconnect after 20 mins and disco when no longer needed in the advanced area. see if that helps.

also, when you are connected double click the connection over near your clock.....

click the properties button - double click internet protocol tcp/ip or highlight it and click properties button.....

click the advanced button on the lower right....

click the DNS tab....

untick register this connections addresses in dns. that may speed you up. I know it does for cable connections when they slow to a crawl.


it has my dialup company in the settings box, marked as default. then the "Always dial my default connection" radio button is checked. there is no LAN. in the Settings nothng is checked, the user name and password are there, no domain.

it does not dial when i turn the computer on. to connect i click on the shortcut icon on the desktop and then press enter (arthritis messes up doubleclick big time) and a large connection box comes up. the volunteer box is smaller.




think i am in the wrong place, no radio buttons, check boxes.

try to connect [10] times
wait [5] seconds between attempts
[x] disconnect if idle for [20] minutes
[x] disconnect when connection may no longer be needed


today i was waiting and waiting for braintalk to come up and the dialup said that i had sent 90K and received 1 meg. but nothing was happening. hum will time it tomorrow.

[annie]

annie - untick always dial my default connection since you click the one on the desktop.

and untick the disconnect after 20 mins and disco when no longer needed in the advanced area. see if that helps..

can i do this connected?

also, when you are connected double click the connection over near your clock......
that is interesting, never knew that was there. how come the compression sent is ten times the compression received? oh, there is my IP address. what a fun box, glad i can cancel out without changing anything. where was i.

click the properties button - double click internet protocol tcp/ip or highlight it and click properties button.....

click the advanced button on the lower right....

click the DNS tab....

untick register this connections addresses in dns. that may speed you up. I know it does for cable connections when they slow to a crawl.

it is already unticked. Append primary and connection specific DNS suffixes is checked, as is Append parent suffixes of the primary DNS suffix

things are a little faster today. this is a very cheap dial up.

[dorry]

looks like you're setup right annie. dialup speeds vary. no much you can do about it. there are modem strings you could try (google modem strings for your model modem), but they don't really help that much with speed.

[annie]

looks like you're setup right annie. dialup speeds vary. no much you can do about it. there are modem strings you could try (google modem strings for your model modem), but they don't really help that much with speed.

thanks, dorry. you give such clear instructions that i always feel safe doing them, never worry that i could be doing something else.

my goodness, modem strings. i remember back in the DOS days we had to input printer strings to print. guess the idea didn't go away.

[Matt A]

I found the little stinker that was tryng to dial out.

There were 4 dial-up windows open again yesterday. Something tried multiple times, as usual, to dial out.

I closed the windows in rapid succession and they froze up and refused to close.

--Program Not Responding Do you wish to terminate this program?--


CTRL-ALT-DEL showed which program wasn't responding!!!!:D

DISCover.exe
from C:\Program Files\DISC\
It is some kind of gaming software for on-line gaming as far as I can tell. It now resides in a different folder on a different drive until I research it more.

Now the only things that try to dial out have fingers and a heartbeat.:)

[annie]

I found the little stinker that was tryng to dial out.
CTRL-ALT-DEL showed which program wasn't responding!!!!:D

DISCover.exe
from C:\Program Files\DISC\
Now the only things that try to dial out have fingers and a heartbeat.:)

aha, a wet brain can outsmart an electronic one when it comes to being illogical.

[Matt A]

aha, a wet brain can outsmart an electronic one when it comes to being illogical.

Ahh, better make that ¾ of a wet brain in this case. ;)

[The Dude]

I looked up that file for you and it says its SPYWARE!!

http://forums.nightly.net/index.php?showtopic=43002 (Reply # 4)

I would be very carefull with that file!!

[mcfox]

I found the little stinker that was tryng to dial out.

There were 4 dial-up windows open again yesterday. Something tried multiple times, as usual, to dial out.

I closed the windows in rapid succession and they froze up and refused to close.

--Program Not Responding Do you wish to terminate this program?--


CTRL-ALT-DEL showed which program wasn't responding!!!!:D

DISCover.exe
from C:\Program Files\DISC\
It is some kind of gaming software for on-line gaming as far as I can tell. It now resides in a different folder on a different drive until I research it more.

Now the only things that try to dial out have fingers and a heartbeat.:)
Good thinking, Batman! :D

It would be interesting to learn what you find out about this little nasty. Obviously it's some form of scumware but how / where did you get it? Browser hijack? :confused:


(Hi Dorry. :) ~ what's wrong with IE7, hmmm?)

[Mike Weins]

There's a bit of confusing information on the net about that file. Some say it's strictly spyware, others say that malware could be masquerading as that file, and still others say it's part of an emulator program (a program you download so you can play non computer games on your computer for those not familar with them).

I say if you don't have any emulators on your comp, then you should use a removal tool to drop it altogether :)

[Matt A]

It was on the Add/Remove Program list, so I put the file back where it was and removed the whole ball of wax using the remove program option. I don't use my computers for gaming and never did. (too old! :rolleyes: )

Whatever it was, it isn't anymore and nothing's dialing out but me.:) It might have just been built-in to this Media Center Edition of WindowsXP for all I know. This whole dual-core was set up for on-line gaming when I bought it. That all disappeared within the first 15 minutes of being plugged in.:D

[dorry]

hiyah mcfox! haven't tried IE7 so I can't say. I'll wait till it's been out awhile.

hey matt - just curious....why didn't you just lock your firewall when you got the autodial and check it that way? ZA is great for that. alerts tell you wahtsup.

[Matt A]

hiyah mcfox! haven't tried IE7 so I can't say. I'll wait till it's been out awhile.

hey matt - just curious....why didn't you just lock your firewall when you got the autodial and check it that way? ZA is great for that. alerts tell you wahtsup.

sorry dorry :rolleyes: just caught this post now.

I have a secure ad hoc wireless network set up between our laptop and desktop with the desktop as host, no router. The autodial is disabled on the host so on either machine, you need to actually click "connect" to dial out.

The free version of Zonealarm doesn't work with ad hoc wireless networks. Windows XP firewall barely does. Once you get everything to work, you touch the firewall settings at your own risk.:( One slip-up, the network comes crashing down. (Time to buy a router?)

I've used Zonealarm from the day it came available untill WinXP. I'm thinking about buying the full version and going back to it. Life was SO much easier with it.

[mcfox]

I've used Zonealarm from the day it came available untill WinXP. I'm thinking about buying the full version and going back to it. Life was SO much easier with it.
That was before it was sold to an Israeli company who decided to try to forcefeed Zonealarm users with a full package of antispam, antivirus, blah, blah. :(

Now you have to try to find antivirus that will work with your firewall that will work with your antiscumware, etc., etc.

For example, Norton 2007, doesn't work with ZA - free version or pro (unless they've fixed it -- in which case I may go rummage about in the garden for the cute little yellow frisbee I made with Norton 2007 :cool:)