Thanks for the suggestion. Now that I think of it, I can't figure out
what the 205.188.11.240 is either. Typing it in my browser location bar
brings no results, so it's not a valid URL. It's also not my Netgear's
fake-URL configuration thing. Anyone have any ideas?
Some general suggestions:
1. Use something like Sam Spade to look up IP address assignments. The
one you mention is part of a AOL assigned block. That doesn't tell us
much though without more detective work.
2. One simple way to find which apps or services are connecting is to
use a running application killer. I suggest APPSWAT available at my
web site. You can often swat (kill) suspect running apps one by one
until the netstat reading disappers. But don't kill core Windows
apps. This does require knowing what _not_ to try to kill on your
particular OS. Of course, core apps may be impossible to kill anyway.
Another way is to download and use a free personal firewall since they
will pop up and ask your permission for apps to access the internet.
Thus, you should easily be able to find the name of a .EXE file and
you can temporarily rename it (if it's not locked) or in some cases
you might want to permanently delete it. There are one or two even
simpler freeware apps available which are useful for IDing apps but I
normally keep Sygate personal firewall around for such purposes since
I like its traffic logging. You should be able to rename or delete
locked files in Safe mode.
3. For communicating netstat info to a newsgroup, I suggest forcing it
to create a text file. For example, open a DOS window and type:
netstat -an >net.txt
should produce a text file named net.txt
BTW, with Win XP the netstat command often used includes an extra
command as: netstat -ano Try this and check the difference.
Also, for maximum clarity, run netstat after restarting Windows and
just after going on line. Then there is no recent history to get in
the way and clutter things up.
Art
http://www.epix.net/~artnpeg