by Problem:
This has only happened over the last few weeks, for no apparent
reason.
On boot up and then hourly my XP/HE installation keeps dialling up and
using any or all of my internet connections in turn in an attempt to
get out. ZoneAlarm Pro stops any actual communication but not the
dial up happening. It will do it even when games are being played.
The culprits superficially seem to be Smart Address and a 'Generic
Host Process'. The extremely helpful (and I don't say this lightly)
tech support at Smart Address has said "There is no dial-capability
built into SA, so something on your system is picking up the TCP/IP
request and creating a dial-up session." In fact there are something
like a dozen GHP attempts to every one of Smart Address's and so I
tend to think that the real culprit is Windows.
The only thing I've changed recently in order to stop the occasional
boot-up hang whilst there is an apparently fruitless search for my
network connections is that I disabled 'Workstation' - following
advice on this newsgroup. That seems to have worked but I wonder if
there is something else which also needs to go!
Any help much appreciated.
Steve