Which programs dials Dial-up connection?

One of the programs on our "Windows XP Home Edition" PC frequently dials the Dial-up connection. How do we find out which program initiates the dialing so that we can disable it?

We use the (free version of) Opera, have the MS Explorer installed, have and use the Outlook Express, Norton System Works professional including the Norton Antivirus and Ghost, PowerQuest/Symantec Partition Magic and Drive Image, the Norton Firewall, and some other programs that could possibly initiate the dialing.

On our other PCs, using Windows 2000 and Windows XP Professional, we do not experience a similar problem, although the configuration is quite similar.

Thanks for any suggestion and help,

Lubos for both of us,
PAL[delete-this]@ieee.org

 

The simplest thing (in my opinon) is to configure your firewall to not allow anything to access the net and to alert you when something tries, then let the dialer run. If Norton's firewall works like the other firewalls I'm familiar with, it will alert you when something's trying to dial out and the alert message will tell you what that something is.

Once you've identified the program, don't forget to go back and put the firewall back to the way it was so it won't continue to alert you on the programs you do want to have internet access.

Note: You should remove your email address from your post (click on the "Edit" button, remove the address, click on the "Save changes" button) since trawling forums such as this one is one way spammers collect addresses to add to their lists.

 

Welcome to the BBS Irene and Lubos,

Be sure to do as Miz suggests and edit your email off the post!

Check to make sure Outlook Express is not trying to initiate a dialup. Check Send/receive settings under Tools, General and also inder Connection. Check your Internet explorer dialup settings and ensure it is not set to automatically dial a connection.

I would also download Spybot and Ad-aware (links below) Install both and be sure to run the update functionality before using them. Some spyware will install dialer programmes that are trying to dial out. After the update run both programmes (separately) and delete all that they find.