messenger triggering outgoing firewall alerts

[unicornb2]

I was wondering why my little hourglass kept popping up next to my cursor. Just for a few seconds, but constantly popping up. So, I went into my alert log for my firewall.

In a span of 15 minutes the media player triggered an outgoing alert 36 times and the messenger triggered a grand total of 770 times.

Why are they trying to connect to the internet and how do I stop it?

uni

 

[Endemix]

Media player tries to connect to the Internet...so it can update your media library, so you can play streaming audio and video and also once you're connected it displays mediaplayer.com in the player.

What media player do you have?
and also what firewall program are you using?

In media player there is probably an option to disable a connection to the internet. In your firewall there is probably an option to never let that program have access to the internet.

 

[unicornb2]

windows media player 9.0 and zone alarm.

yes, I have access blocked out of the firewall. It's just annoying to be playing a game and having that silly hourglass pop up a hundred times a minute.

I will try and see if I can turn off the internet inside the media player. What exactly is windows messenger anyway? Is it like msn messenger?

uni

 

[Endemix]

basically more features and also windows messenger is only for windows xp.

for all the features of windows messengerhttp://messenger.msn.com/support/features.asp?client=0

for all the features of msn messengerhttp://messenger.msn.com/support/features.asp?client=1

 

[stu37]

i just ran spybot and one of the spies was wmplayer, which it blocked and maybe would for you too if you run it
bob

 

[Endemix]

Thanks for the tip...BTW, SpyBot is a GREAT program. I think it's much better then AdAware.

just my two cents

 

[stu37]

your welcome Endemix. Please let us know if it helps
bob

 

[unicornb2]

I turned off the internet from inside the media player and it seems to have worked. Thank you.

Everything in xp is in a different place. Where do I go to uninstall the windows components? Will I be able to get rid of the messenger? No one here uses it. They all use AIM or Yahoo messenger.

I think I will try spybot. Adaware didn't catch the media player spyware. Does spybot have a trial dl?

Thanks for your help. It's going to take me a while to find everything in xp. Like how do I turn off the automatic updates?

I hate pop up windows and xp is chalk-full of them. Little balloons popping up everywhere. Every time I hit the start button, I get a stupid balloon telling me that it can't list all the programs cuz there isn't enough room. The start menu isn't even full, so why drive me nuts with the little balloon? Can those be turned off?

uni

 

[Endemix]

To add or remove programs/windows components:

Start > Control Pane > Add or Remove Programs

How do I get rid of the pop-up balloons(or bubbles) that appear near the system tray?

Involves registry editing. Navigate to
"HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced", create DWORD value called EnableBalloonTips with Hex value of 0 and restart your computer.

 

[unicornb2]

Thank you much!
uni

 

[stu37]

here are the details for SpyBot, by the way it is free

http://www.lurkhere.com/~nicefiles/spybot11r3.exe

click the online tab to search for and download the updates, then shut down and relaunch SpyBot.

Go to the Settings tab, File Sets, and uncheck 'System Internals' and 'Tracks' .
You don't need these now, and you can see if you can use them later on.

close down Internet Explorer, click 'Check for problems', have SpyBot remove all it finds, then click on 'Fix selected problems'
hope it helps, good luck
bob