Lock-ups and IPSec failure audit

[Paul]

I'm experiencing intermittent lock-ups of my computer. From time to time the
hour-glass stays on for a long time (maybe indefinitely). The mouse pointer
moves, but right-clicking the task bar doesn't bring up a menu. Sometimes
Ctrl+Alt+Del eventually brings up Task Manager, which action seems to bring
everything back to life (or maybe it's just that whatever was happening
eventually finishes/times out).

Just after the last time this happened I looked in the Event Viewer and
found an error listed at the time of the lock-up:
Event Type: Failure Audit
Event Source: Security
Event Category: Policy Change
Event ID 615
Description: IPSec Services: IPSec Services failed to get the complete list
of network interfaces on the machine. This can be a potential security
hazard to the machine since some of the network interfaces may not get the
protection as desired by he applied IPSec filters.

My PC is running XP Home and has dual LAN capability, one of which is not
connected and the other is connected to another PC that was turned off at
the time. Internet access is dial-up (internal modem).

Can anyone throw any light on this, or advise what I should do to get rid of
the lock-ups?

John

 

[Kelly]

Hi Paul,

Some info for you:

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=...earch&meta=group=microsoft.public.windowsxp.*

http://www.eventid.net/display.asp?eventid=615&source=Security

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...d+to+get+the+complete+list&btnG=Google+Search

 

[John]

Kelly,

Thanks for your response.

The first link produced the following:
"Your search - IPSec Services: IPSec Services failed to get the complete
list group:microsoft.public.windowsxp - did not match any articles in the
group microsoft.public.windowsxp"

I am looking into the second. The third produced a list of links with
information that is way too involved for my understanding. I cannot even
understand some of the Introduction in the MS article about IPSec!

But I have a much more fundamental question: Do I need to be running IPSec
at all? Unless I am completely mistaken (not by any means impossible!), it
appears to be some way of adding security to IP packets which would be
applicable to Virtual Private Networking or the like, and requires two
computers both running Windows 2000 or later. I am not doing anything like
this. I have a (quite new) home PC connecting to the internet via dial-up
for email and web surfing. I have a network connection to my older PC that
runs Win98SE.

MS has a habit of turning on lots of unnecessary options by default, and I
wonder if that is the case here. Can you (or anyone else) tell me whether or
not this is so? I don't like just enabling/disabling things unless either I
understand them or have advice from someone who does.

Thanks,
John