although not a guest (i am a registered user), i do not see where to put this, so i ask for indulgence and advice

on a lark, i deleted nearly every firewall outbound rule on my computer. i was completely surprised by what ensued.

programs (windows explorer, MS Word 2003, Powerpoint, etc) that have no business going out to the internet actually GO OuT TO THE INTERNET. and they request permission to go to places that they should not.

i am running trend pc-cillin, and it is up to date. in fact, it ran a scan last nite. nothing was found.

i have run the usual gamit of products (panda, kapersky, etc), but without solution.

any ideas?

Hello rozniak,

You are welcome to post in this particular forum.

Some attempts may be legitimate - they might be attempts by the software to check for updates. These legitimate attempts can usually be turned-off by changing a setting (configuration, preferences, etc). Sometimes the particular setting can be difficult to find.

These may be of help:

http://www.netsquirrel.com/msconfig/

http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,117409,pg,2,00.asp

http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk./startup_index.htm

http://www.windowsstartup.com/wso/index.php

http://www.sysinfo.org/startuplist.php?filter=sm1bg.exe&count=&type=

http://www.lafn.org/webconnect/mentor/startup/PENINDEX.HTM

http://www2.whidbey.com/djdenham/Uncheck.htm


What you describe can also be symptomatic of malware.

Try working through this:

http://wiki.castlecops.com/Malware_Removal_and_Prevention:_Overview