I don’t care if an application is trying to access the internet, because my firewall blocks everything, and it will asks first if I want to allow net access to an application. If you use Windows XP, install a third-party firewall, because the built-in firewall doesn’t control outbound access. Vista firewall better, but you need to configure it to block outbound access.

I am with Weylund, there are tools that are meant to do exactly this sort of thing and do it well. If you use e.g. Windows Live OneCare you will be asked when an app wants to access the internet and will have the option of stopping the request.

how about on XP? I typed in perfmon, but there is no “network” to view. Can anyone let me know where to go on XP? thanks

SysInternals offers two tools that I’ve always found a bit more helpful… Process Explorer and TCP View.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/default.aspx

you will need to be a admin of your machine in order to get full access to the network section.

I dunno about you guys, but my heinous-yet-faithful firewall (ZoneAlarm) notifies me about all incoming / outgoing traffic, and I have to explicitly allow applications access to the network in both directions. Is this not a normal firewall feature?

Allan, google LMS.exe and then UNS.exe and you’ll find that both of those are Intel Management utilities. The first is rated as dangerous because it hides itself.

It should be noted that people who do actually have a network will see all apps talking on the network, not just apps that are connected to the internet.

James,
Thanks for that. The trouble is, the information you get isn’t very informative. When I did it, I discovered the following were using the network:

LMS.exe
UNS.exe
System

I’m not sure I’m much the wiser for knowing this. If there was a rogue programme operating, how would I know? It’s likely it would have a cryptic name.

Allan