Windows XP phoning home

[[BH]Thorn]

Probably an old topic, but I couldn't find the answers with searches. Using WinXP upgrade from Win98SE.. dual booting on seperate partitions on an AMD1ghz, 256mg PC2100 DDR dram, FIC AD11 m/b, blah blah blah... Problem --> installed ZoneAlarm and a packet sniffer. Upon rebooting my machine this eve (I've had XP and ZoneAlarm installed for 2-3wks now) ZoneAlarm showed a file xfer in progress. Turned on the sniffer.. showed I was sending/receiving to windowsupdate.com. Since I first installed XP, I have set it to NOTIFY me of updates, so I can CHOOSE when/if to install them.
I do have a log of 546 packets that were sent to MS, so if anyone can read them in some fashion that would let me know what was sent, I'd really appreciate it. I used Win98SE with ZoneAlarm previously and never had anything like this. I did allow ZoneAlarm to let Generic Win Host 32 Service and a program it didn't name (literally) to act as a server, but IE would not work without them???? Win98SE never asked that from ZoneAlarm.

It really bothers me that my PC was sending/receiving info without my knowledge, unless I had these programs installed that showed what the F*** was happening, I'd have never known.

Thanks in advance,

A Noob whose not a N00B

get sent here from another forum.. sorry for dupes

 

[JellyBaby]

XP does reach out and touch someone, even if you disable the automatic stuff. I'm not sure what it's doing at times. I also have services that attempt to contact the net after I do certain things. It's rather annoying.

IMO all software should explain what it's doing the first time it networks beyond the PC.

 

[StuckMojo]

hmm..lets see. you told it to let you know if there were updates.
do you think it's psychic? i would imagine the data being transferred is the "list" of available updates.

 

[StuckMojo]

hrmph. that came out a little harsh. i was trying to be funny/sarcastic.

 

[bacillus]

<< I have set it to NOTIFY me of updates, so I can CHOOSE when/if to install them. >>


try turning that off so that you have to manually look for updates & see if the problem persists!

 

[[BH]Thorn]

Possible, but the auto update feature didn't come up.. I'd think it would have notified me of the updates right away. Usually when it does come up I tell it to wait 1 day (unless it's a critical update), and it hasn't come up for at least 3 days now since my puter talked to MS, so I kind of doubt that's it.

 

[cleverhandle]

But I believe that the way the windows update system works is by downloading a list of all the updates, which your computer then sifts through to see if any are applicable. So even if there are no new updates to install, your 'puter doesn't know this until it has downloaded the list.